


As the Coins Fall

by atreiya



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:58:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atreiya/pseuds/atreiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story takes place after the Revelations quest, and it starts off with a spin on the encounter with Imshael at Suledin Keep. Although Blackwall and the Inquisitor eventually deal with some unresolved issues stemming from her judgment of him and his own inner turmoil, the wound he suffers during combat turns out to be more serious than expected. Needless to say, this isn't going to be the end of their trials, as you can probably expect to see Blackwall's past coming back to haunt him in the future (if I go through with what I currently have planned - heh).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is basically original, although there are a few paraphrases and/or direct references to events/dialogue in the game that you will see (and I'll update with specific citations if/when applicable). Obviously, the characters are all BioWare's unless you see me throw in someone or something new. I did tweak the confrontation with Imshael in Chapter 1 a bit to cut down the number of transformations because, honestly, I didn't want that whole fight scene drawn out more than it needed to be. :P
> 
> And I'm moving this bit down here to join the notes section because Chapter 2 is imminent, and I needed to update the summary. I am, of course, trying to flesh out Blackwall's and the FemQuisitor's post-judgment reconciliation and relationship, and I certainly hope to explore more of Blackwall's past in bits.
> 
> EDIT: Replayed the Imshael confrontation, and it turns out that the dialogue I wrote - including the Cole dialogue - was all original, so that gave me a minor laugh (seeing as I actually thought that some of what I wrote was from the game). Evidently, I was just riffing a bit on what the dying red templar said about Imshael being a gardener/having a garden - heh. Although I guess the "Call Me Imshael" quest name might count as a direct reference with that one line when Imshael is speaking to the Inquisitor.

Ahead of them, a cluster of crystals burst from the snow, ruby red and pulsing with an eerie light. Being so close to the corrupted lyrium made his skin crawl, but the task of destroying it fell to him as always. Blackwall slammed his shield into the mother crystal and shattered it with a single blow, a spray of shards scattering across the ground like frozen blood. There was a seductive beauty in the fading light of each of the fragments as they winked out one by one. Maybe it was his imagination getting away with him...but he could have sworn that he heard the faintest of whispers from them before they disintegrated into a fine powder. He shuddered, thinking that he would be happiest to be well away from this place.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he exhaled and watched as the moisture turned almost instantly into frost. The particles were suspended briefly in the air, refracting the sunlight and shimmering softly before dispersing on the wind. He cautiously looked around as the group made its way deeper into Suledin Keep. His head constantly swept from side to side as they wound their way through the dark, vaulted corridors and the empty courtyards where skeletal trees reached up towards the sky with their barren limbs. The path seemed clear for now, and the others hurried along in his wake. Cole and Lady Trevelyan trailed close behind him, with Solas bringing up the rear. He could practically feel the elf's eyes boring holes into his back, but he accepted his scorn and anger as part of the price that had to be paid. It helped keep him grounded, tethered—it kept him from forgetting.

They entered into the final courtyard, only to see the bloom of more red lyrium and a dark-haired man standing by himself, leaning against a cage. He looked like he had all the answers in the world and wasn't about to share them. A shit-eating grin slowly spread across the man's face, malice glinting in his gold-ringed eyes. "My dear Inquisitor...you may call me _Imshael_."

Blackwall knew that grin—he'd worn it on his own face often enough in his life, his _old_ life. He glanced towards Lady Trevelyan, but she gave him an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

"Just tell me what your heart's desire is, and it's yours for the asking _if_ you let me leave this place unmolested. After all, I am but a humble gardener who wishes to tend to his charges in peace." Imshael gave her a mock bow, and then his eyes slid across to Blackwall. The demon leered at him and gave him a knowing wink before turning back to the Inquisitor. "And you can certainly do better than a broken-down old warhorse, my lady, so why don't we make a deal?"

Blackwall narrowed his eyes beneath his helmet and gritted his teeth. _Insufferable prick._

The demon ignored him and continued, "You can go your way, and I can go mine—no one will be the wiser. The keep will be yours, although I will miss all my lovely flowers."

Cole cocked his head to the side, the thin, wispy young lad not quite looking at anyone. His voice was soft as he said, "A thousand needles, a thousand knives. All the world turns red..an endless sea of fire in which they burn. He feeds on their screams and their pain in the garden that he has made of it...of _them_."

The Inquisitor looked at Cole questioningly. "Is that what he's been doing to them, Cole?"

"Yes. He...that one says he...shaped them?" Cole pointed at a figure lying in the distance.

Imshael tut-tutted and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Well, I guess your little Fade pet has caught me out. The only question left is this: what will you do now? My offer is generous, and if you overlook my... _indiscretions,_ this can end well for both of us. I have no love for your enemy and no loyalty to him either. What love do you have for these templars, mage?" The last word was said with a sneer on his face.

"None," the Inquisitor said, "but at the very least, these templars are more honest monsters than you will ever be. I do have to give them some credit; after all, they don't hide what they are behind clever words and pretty lies. And as I understand it, your wish-granting tends to come with a few hidden strings. I had a chat with your very good friend, Michel de Chevin. Perhaps you remember him?"

The demon sighed exaggeratedly and waved his hand. "Pot. Kettle. Black. Considering the company you keep, my lady, I'm not so sure that you're the best judge of character. How long until the snakes in your own garden bite you?" Imshael cast his eye in Blackwall's direction again. "But as you wish..."

"Maker's fucking balls," Blackwall said as Imshael's form began to change. The air around it began to visibly ripple as the air temperature suddenly spiked. It was no longer a man, but a Rage demon in the blink of an eye. The intense heat radiating from Imshael's body licked at the edges of Blackwall's shield, but he kept his shield angled in front of him and deflected the worst of it away. All he really had to do was to keep the damned thing off the others. Although he would never be entirely comfortable around magic, he trusted Lady Trevelyan implicitly. The demon let out an unearthly wail, a summons that called forth the lesser demons that were bound to it. He could see them circling around the group.

A familiar feeling of coolness surrounded him just then, Solas and his barrier spell adding an invisible layer of protection. The elven apostate may have been angry with him, but he was also clearly able to be a professional like himself when necessary. They still had that much in common. There was a sudden thud as the demon struck his shield that made his entire left side shudder, but he tensed his muscles and maintained his grip.

He cautiously slid his blade free, waiting for an opportunity to use it. Demons these enemies might be, but so long as they took physical form, they could be killed. From the corner of his eye, Blackwall could see Cole spinning across the courtyard like a dancer as he moved from one enemy to the next. The boy's knives were almost hypnotic as they gleamed and flashed in the sunlight. Fighting was, in a way, like a dance after all. There were steps to perform and stances to be held. He soon fell into the familiar rhythm of blocking and slashing. It was almost instinctive after so many years of soldiering, requiring little conscious thought.

As Cole and the others were whittling down the lesser demons, an arctic blast passed within inches of his head, barely kissing his exposed skin as it traveled past him and hit Imshael. _Showoff,_ he thought fondly. He knew that it had been Lady Trevelyan without even having to look. The demon's right side immediately began to freeze as the spell hit its mark. Blackwall brought his shield down on its now vulnerable side with a satisfying crack, following up with a strike from his sword. Imshael roared in pain as black ichor dripped from its wounds, but it soon started laughing as if this were the funniest thing in the world, and the sound of its laughter was liquid and dark and strange to his ears. He could also hear the cracking and grinding of bone on bone as the demon's skeleton began to change. Before his eyes, its flesh was remolding itself into a newer and more dangerous form.

"Maker's bloody mercy—just have the fucking decency to die like other fucking demons," he muttered under his breath. Now taking the form of a Pride demon, Imshael rose to its full height, towering over them all and cracking twin whips of lightning. It smiled at him with a maw full of jagged teeth, and he roared to keep its attention on him as he saw Cole coming in from behind. In a few deft moves, the boy had hamstrung the demon. Blackwall readied himself and pushed off as soon as Cole was out of harm's way, slamming his whole body into the creature's injured right leg.

It screamed and went down on one knee. Behind him, he could feel energy rising from the two mages. Streams of fire and flame arced overhead, twining around each other. If they hadn't been in a life-and-death situation, he might even have called it beautiful. He followed the spells' trajectory and watched as they struck home, blinding several of the demon's eyes and eliciting a sound close to a whimper from Imshael. One swift stroke from his sword and its throat was opened up. A second, and its head was off.

Blackwall leaned right down as its remaining eyes clouded over and spat in its face. "How's that for a broken-down old warhorse?"

As the adrenaline rush from the fight wore off, he could start to feel a dull throbbing in his muscles, particularly in his arms and shoulders. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he could do with at least a day of rest. Still, it was a damned sight better to end up a bit sore and battered than it was to be dead. A sudden stinging and the sensation of dampness on his forearm made him look down. He could see a tear in the padding and cursed, but there wasn't anything he could do about it until he got his armor off.

The others had walked over to him, and Lady Trevelyan looked at his arm with concern. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"Nothing I can't handle—glancing blow is all. Didn't even notice it until now. It's just a minor bleeder at worst." He looked away from her, still uncomfortable under her gaze, still finding himself unworthy of her attention.

"We should tend to that as soon as possible after we have set up camp," Solas said, finally treating him with something less than cold disdain. It was a welcome, if somewhat unexpected, change after several weeks of pointed silence. Blackwall found Solas to be a bit of a strange one, yet he had always felt as if they had shared a certain kinship. The elf might not look or act like a soldier, but he had seen war—it showed in his eyes.

The warrior looked at Cole who was standing off by himself, his expression that of someone who seemed to be a million miles away. If anything scared him, it was the boy...the spirit...whatever he was. Not even the bloody mages could settle it amongst themselves, and he was tired of their endless debates over the subject. What he saw before him was nothing more and nothing less than a kind lad who wanted to help others. It's just that Cole's idea of "help" could leave you feeling like you'd been flayed alive when he blindsided you with a few unexpected words. That's what was scary about him, this ability of his to see so clearly and deeply into your soul. The best he could describe it, well, it was as if you were suddenly standing naked before the eyes of the Maker. Though there was only ever compassion in the boy's voice when he had spoken to Blackwall, it sometimes made the guilt worse. He knew the others were right, that Cole was right, but it was going to take time before he could truly let go of the past. He had borne the weight of his sins for so long that he almost didn't remember what life was like before he'd ever seen that carriage and heard those small voices joined in song. _Mockingbird, mockingbird..._ Blackwall could still hear the terrified screams even now. He had to stop and close his eyes for a moment.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and he knew that evening would be falling soon. He took off his helmet to get some air and clear his head a bit. With the templars and that damned demon gone, they could at least set up camp for the night. Solas and the Inquisitor were working on the tents, and Cole seemed to have the campfire in hand, so he walked over to the signal horn and sounded it, waiting for a response from the Inquisition forces. It didn't take very long. He saw that the others were already done setting up camp when he got back—not so surprising for an apostate mage who lived in the wild, but he hadn't expected Lady Trevelyan to get the hang of it so quickly. They all seemed like old hands at it now.

 _First the sword, then the rest._ His sword was as much a part of him as anything else, perhaps the most important part for a warrior. He inspected the blade—wouldn't do if rust set in or if it were chipped anywhere—and then cleaned the demon's blood from with a deft and practiced hand. Satisfied that it was in good condition and that there was no visible damage to the edges, he sheathed the weapon and headed for his tent. Everyone was aware that he liked having a certain amount of space, so the tent farthest from the fire was always his. He ducked inside and started removing his armor. Someone had already hung up a lantern, and he was thankful for it.

Shrugging off the padding, he could finally get a look at the damage the demon had done. Thin ridges of scars, and a few thicker ones from more severe injuries, covered his body, all of them forming the roadmap of his life. And in them he could trace all the choices and all the mistakes that had led him to her. Though he had more regrets than anyone he knew, meeting Lady Trevelyan hadn't been one of them. The dark red line now running down his forearm would be just another scar added to the collection in time. He was satisfied that the wound wasn't particularly deep, and it seemed to be clotting over already; he wouldn't be needing stitches at least.

Blackwall nearly jumped when the tent flap opened and saw that it was the Inquisitor herself bearing a bowl containing an antiseptic tincture, along with bandages and gauze pads. Her dark hair was hanging loose and cascaded down her back. She usually had it tied up to keep it out of the way—unless they were alone. "You really know how to sneak up on a man, my lady," he said gruffly.

She smiled at that, amused both by his double meaning and his tone. He tried to pin down the exact moment she had stolen in and stolen his heart against his will, but he couldn't narrow it down to any one thing. It had been a slow and gradual process, and by the time he first realized that there was something more in his heart than the all-consuming sea of guilt that he'd been drowning in for years, it was too late to turn away from her.

"Thom, my Thom," she said quietly as she set the bowl on the ground and knelt before him. "Do stop trying to get yourself killed like that. I've only just gotten you back."

He flinched a bit at hearing his true name. She saw his reaction and reached up, trailing her hand down the side of his face and then tilting his head up to force him to look at her. They locked gazes for a moment, his faded blue eyes looking searchingly into her glinting green ones, and then she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Believe in yourself as I do and accept that you have changed. Your name is not a curse, and it is not the sum of who you are."

"As you wish, my lady. I can deny you nothing after all." He reached out for her right hand and raised it to his lips, brushing them across her skin.

A peal of laughter like the tinkling of bells, like the summer rain. It gladdened him to hear it. "You should call me by my name," she said, " in private at least."

"Yes, my la—" He caught himself and stopped. "Carys...I—"

She put a finger to his lips and silenced him with her touch. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" She reached over for a gauze pad and dipped it into bowl.

"Wait." He had a serious look on his face. "We've not really had a chance to...to talk since  Skyhold."

She motioned for him to give her his arm. He complied with a sigh, and she began dabbing at his wound carefully. "Then by all means, talk. We have time enough right now, but I do have to tend to this unless you want an infection to set in."  
How maddening and how wonderful it was to be with her, his lady of the emerald eyes. As she continued her ministrations, he took a deep breath to steel himself before speaking. It wasn't going to be easy, but he needed to get this out all at once before he lost his nerve again—she had a way of completely unmanning him. "I just wanted to apologize for what I said to you before back at Skyhold. You did what you did for me, and I blamed you for it—wasn't right of me to do that, not after everything. I'm sorry."  
 She was silent as she bound his arm and tightened the bandage. "I wanted to scream at you before, to slap you across the face after you left," she finally said. "You decided to throw your life away for me, and I had a right to know why. And then..."  
"You did, and it's another mistake that I regret." He bowed his head.

"Why now, Thom?"

"What you said earlier—I want to believe that I've changed. And I think that what a good man would do is to get on his knees and beg forgiveness from the woman he loves for all the hurt he's caused her. He wouldn't run from that responsibility."  
She looked at him appraisingly and said, "Just when I think you can't surprise me any more than you already have, you do. And, by the way, I'd prefer it if you limited the number of surprises from now on—I probably can't take too many more of them at this point."

Blackwall had been sitting while she had worked on his arm, but he got on his knees and knelt before her, touching his forehead to hers. "All that I am and all that I have is yours—my sword, my shield, my body." He took her left hand, turning her palm up to watch the pulsing yellow-green energy of the Anchor for a moment before placing it against his chest. "And my heart."

The Inquisitor's mouth found his, her kiss a benediction. He tasted the forgiveness on her lips, and it was as sweet as honeyed mead. He drank deeply of it until they finally broke apart.

"I don't think this is particularly wise with a full audience nearby," she whispered in his ear after drawing him close to nibble at his neck. Her warm breath tickled at him, and her right hand was now trailing dangerously low across his stomach despite her words.

He pushed her robe up and found that she was naked beneath it. Sliding a hand up along her inner thigh, he stopped just short with a groan. "You just had to mention that, didn't you?"

"I only said it wasn't wise. I didn't say you should stop." She unlaced his trousers and kissed his shoulder, feeling the tautness of his muscles as she hungrily ran her hands over his stomach.

"Are you in the habit of teasing old men?" he asked, trapping her hands with his own before reaching up to brush a strand of her hair back.

"Only the one in front of me," she said with a trace of a smile.

  
"Well now, we'll just have to do something about that then, won't we?" He kissed her hard on the mouth, muffling her moans as he began to work between her legs with his hand.

*

 _Even without the benefit of preternaturally keen hearing, one could not possibly be unaware of what was going on inside that tent,_ thought Solas with a flicker of irritation. But if the Inquisitor believed in the man that Rainier now was and chose to take comfort from him, then so be it—he had little right to judge either of them. When you were the one whose fate was to reshape the world around you, it could be...very lonely. Though he detested what Rainier had done, what had really been bothering Solas was that every time he looked at the man, it was like being forced to look into a mirror that reflected his own failings back at him. It had taken a while to admit this to himself, but now that he had, he wished to extend an olive branch at a more appropriate time. In some respects, they were not so different.

Cole had his attention diverted elsewhere, fortunately. He seemed particularly fascinated by the pinpricks of light moving up the winding trail that led to Suledin Keep. "The torches—like fireflies dancing!" exclaimed the spirit excitedly. "Their unity of purpose is a beacon in the darkness. Their belief in _her_ allows them to endure."

Solas smiled faintly. "Indeed, you are right, Cole. Sometimes it is a belief in a greater purpose or a greater cause that allows people to push past their inherent limitations." He had disagreed vociferously with both the Inquisitor and Varric about tying this spirit of compassion more closely to the earthly world, but it had been Cole's choice to make in the end. The elf wondered if his harsh judgment of his own actions had led him to being too rigid in the way that he dealt with others. At any rate, despite his occasional disagreements with them and despite all the secrets that he held within himself, the only real option he had at the moment was to continue on in his current role as a member of the Inquisition. After all, it was his own choices that had sent events spinning into unpredictable motion like a handful of coins thrown into the air. He needed to be there when the last coin fell.

"Will they be here in the morning?" Cole asked, still looking down at the procession of Inquisition forces from his vantage point on a snow-covered outcropping of rock.

The question was a welcome distraction for the elf. He answered, "Yes, probably. Come sit by the fire; we will talk a while, and perhaps...perhaps you can teach me something new on the nature of change." Solas gestured to a spot next to him by the fire and waited for the spirit—the boy—to sit next to him.

*

"Maker, have mercy," Blackwall said. He was leaning back and holding himself up on his elbows, sweat beading on his skin from their mutual exertions. "Are you _trying_ to kill me?"

Sitting astride him, the Inquisitor put her hands on his chest and pushed him back down onto the bedroll. "Just giving you a good workout, for which you should be thanking me. It's not as if you'll be in any shape to practice your fancy swordplay with that arm of yours at the moment. This, on the other hand, should be perfectly manageable." She thrust her hips against his one last time before climbing off.

He laughed and pulled her next to him on the bedroll, bundling both of them up beneath the furs. "True enough, but too many workouts like that, and I might be in need of medical treatment for more than just my arm."

She turned to face him and grinned. "Don't worry, I won't ride you nearly as hard next time."

"Already thinking ahead?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I _do_ have to manage my time carefully with so many demands placed on it."

"Then you _did_ plan this whole thing!" he said with mock outrage.

She nodded as she took his uninjured arm and wrapped it around her. "Of course I did—I engineered this entire trip to Emprise du Lion _and_ a fight with a demon for the sole purpose of getting you to bed me."

"And how'd you learn to be so devious? They teach that at the Ostwick Circle?"

"No, as a Trevelyan, I was simply born with an innate talent for it—it's an esteemed family trait of ours, even though it's not officially part of the family motto." She managed to keep a straight face while answering him.

He started to laugh, but a lance of pain shooting through his arm cut his laughter short. _Well, shit,_ he thought, _Solas can just look at it in the morning—not like I haven't endured worse. It's probably nothing anyway._ He grimaced and waited it out.

"Are you alright, Thom?" she asked, looking at him with concern.

"Carys, love, don't worry yourself about it. This isn't anything new, not for me." He took her hand and guided it to one of his older scars. "All wounds heal in time—the physical ones at least."

"I'll take you at your word then, but you _will_ tell me if something is wrong." It was more command than question. She ran her finger along the ridge of scar tissue, and it made him shiver.

"I promise. Now get some sleep." He combed his fingers through her hair and kissed her. Blackwall could hear the rhythm of her breathing change as she drifted off, but he was still staring at the ceiling of the tent an hour later. His wound seemed to jolt him awake every time he was on the edge of falling asleep, and he resigned himself to the fact that it was going to be a long night. As the hours continued to crawl by, the physical needs of his body eventually won out over the pain. He fell into a restless sleep, but beneath the bandage wrapped around his arm, the poison spread.  
 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the previous chapter, things are clearly not going too well for Blackwall. He is about to deal with the fallout from the wound he suffered in the first chapter, and so will everyone around him. The Inquisitor has to juggle his illness, along with dealing with her own people, and her role as the Herald (not necessarily welcomed but grudgingly accepted along the way). Despite being somewhat serious, I like to think there are a few moments of levity (well, for me those moments qualify as levity at any rate - heh).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okaaaay...mostly just citations atm here.
> 
> 1\. During Blackwall's conversation with Cole, I actually cite dialogue directly from the game. The Inquisitor asks how Cole views her in the game, and he mentions the too bright/counting birds against the sun thing. Also, there's that thing about things flying out of Cole's mouth that more or less mirrors some banter Blackwall has with Cole in the game (also one bit about "it's what you were thinking" that is basically the kind of thing he says in the game).
> 
> 2\. There's a reference to certain Solas/Blackwall banter if you catch it (hah!).
> 
> 3\. There's a bit during one of the Inquisitor's more self-reflective moments that references a conversation with Mother Giselle.
> 
> 4\. Ah, the obvious brooding reference in the later Inquisitor/Blackwall dialogue (yes, that's a reference to the brooding line before the romance scene right before Revelations).
> 
> 5\. At the end in the Solas/Cole conversation, there is some paraphrasing of dialogue from the game and/or actual dialoge (I think...honestly, it may be that I'm starting to write so much in the perceived voice of the characters that I'm not entirely sure if some of this was/wasn't in the game - seriously, I wish I had direct references to look at for proper citation, but oh well...).
> 
> 6\. Not sure if I'm pulling the Solas dream/memory from the game. Either I did a good job, or it WAS in the game (hmm, now I'm thinking something like that was in the game as one of the Fade dreams, but I have to go through earlier saves to check).

They were bright, like stars shining in the night sky—so many voices calling for his attention—but his friends were the brightest of all, fixed points in his mind like one of the constellations arrayed above him. That's why he could immediately sense the wrongness in the tent, the sickness that was spreading. Cole tilted his head, considering what to do. _Not dying, no. Death feels...different. Death is like watching a guttering flame in the darkness—it flickers and then fails, finally giving out completely._ He would fetch Solas who seemed to know so much about everything. He could fix things, make them better in ways that Cole, armed only with gentle words and sharp knives, could not.

*

A shaft of sunlight passing through the narrow slit formed by the tent flaps woke the Inquisitor with its warmth on her face. She reluctantly cracked an eye open and threw off the furs that were covering her, knowing that she needed to get up before the workers arrived. It would have been a grand thing to have been able to ignore the world outside for just one day, but she had her duties to attend to. The stonemasons and the architects would be here before too long, and they would just have to get her input over every last detail before they started their repairs and upgraded to the keep. Though they knew their jobs, they also seemed to have this constant need to have the Herald of bloody Andraste approve their work whenever she was around—as if every word out of her mouth were either a blessing or a divine command. It just never stopped, not even after she had recovered her memories in the Fade.

People still wanted to believe that she was something more than she really was despite the fact that it had been Divine Justinia who had saved her, not Andraste herself. They saw the hand of the Maker at work even in this one act, and so she would always be the Herald to them, not a mage or a noble or a woman in love—not any of the things that she actually was. She hadn't forgotten her conversation with Mother Giselle or the resignation and the frustration that she had felt. Facing up to the reality of the situation had never been particularly easy either before or after this latest revelation, but she had come to accept more and more of late that the mantle was hers whether she wanted it or not. Marked by the Anchor and without any other alternatives, there had never been any real choice but for her to be the one to step up, had there?

The Inquisitor reached over to wake Blackwall, but she suddenly pulled her hand back after touching his skin, alarmed by how hot he was. She quickly checked his arm and could see some spotting on the bandage. After getting up and slipping her robe on, she undid the bandage to get a look at the wound. It was to be expected that there would be some redness and inflammation during the healing process; however, there seemed to be far more inflammation than was normal. There were still enough supplies on hand for her to clean the wound out again and bind it. Once she was done, she checked to make sure that his breathing was regular.

 _He seems alright...or stable at least...a few minutes more of sleep can't hurt at this point._ She paced back and forth for a few minutes. The Inquisitor wanted to consult with Solas as soon as possible, but first things first: she needed to change into something more appropriate. The gossiping back at Skyhold, not to mention elsewhere, was already bad enough after she had rendered her judgment on Rainier. It hadn't gone over entirely well with many people, and she could only imagine what would happen if the Herald started parading through camp dressed for the bedroom instead of the battlefield. As for what Solas and Cole may have heard last night, she trusted Solas to be discreet. Cole...well, it was something of a moot point because he'd eventually find out one way or another with his ability to read minds. The best you could ever really hope for was that he wouldn't blurt out anything personally embarrassing in front of the wrong people. _Just as long as he never says anything about it within earshot of Vivienne—ever—I can live with that._ In her tent, she hastily changed into her normal robes and rushed back out, still in the middle of trying to pull her hair back into a loose ponytail.

"Ah, Inquisitor," said Solas. He walked up to her with a bundle of herbs while she was tying a final knot to fix her hair in place.

Cole fidgeted next to the elf, bouncing from one foot to the other. "I could feel the pain growing this morning—clouds gathering on the horizon before the coming storm." He looked at Blackwall's tent. "But he is strong, and Solas will help. You shouldn't worry," he added, trying to comfort her.

Solas nodded. "Cole informed me that there was a problem as soon as I was awake, so I took the opportunity to gather some herbs that we might need while you both slept. If I may ask, how is he?"

"Walk with me," she said, motioning for them to follow. "The arm seemed worse than it did last night. He also has a high fever." She held open the flap to Blackwall's tent and ushered them in. "Thom, wake up," the Inquisitor said after seating herself beside him. "I need you to wake up now, soldier."

Blackwall opened his eyes with a start and groaned miserably, his brows furrowed. He looked at Lady Trevelyan before closing his eyes briefly. "Feels like a herd of wild horses ran over me, but I'm fine. I was just up all night—fucking arm."

"You're clearly _not_ fine. You have a fever, and I checked your—"

Blackwall interrupted her with a question. "Did you smell anything?"

"What?" She was caught off guard by his inquiry.

"Did you smell anything at all? A sickly-sweet scent, or anything...off?" He repeated himself slowly, wincing as another wave of pain hit.

"No, I didn't...but what—"

He interjected, "Then it's not turning gangrenous, and I'm not in imminent danger of dying. I just _feel_ like I'm dying."

"Oh, well _that's_ good to know. And since you're suddenly a field surgeon, perhaps you'd like to offer up some ideas for treatment?" Though she was greatly relieved that he was awake _and_ talking, her tone was decidedly dry.

Blackwall put his good hand up as if to ward her off. "Hold on, love. I just meant that it's not as bad as it _could_ have been. I've seen a lot of injuries on the battlefield, and I _do_ have some experience in these matters."

"He is actually correct about that," Solas said mildly.

Blackwall turned his head slowly and then squinted at Solas and Cole. "Please tell me that I'm delirious and hallucinating right now."

"You are not," Solas replied.

"Great...right...why don't we just invite _everyone_ in after they arrive, then? We'll have a bloody _party_ in my tent. Corypheus can even have tea and fucking crumpets while my arm is killing me," Blackwall groused. Seeing Lady Trevelyan narrow her eyes at him, he hastily added, "Poor choice of words, my lady—forgive me."

Solas handled his bundle of herbs to Cole and helped the Inquisitor get Blackwall sitting upright so that he could personally assess the condition of the warrior's arm. He unwrapped the bandage and took a close look at the wound, carefully probing the surrounding flesh before fixing it back in place. "I see that you have paid attention to my lessons, Inquisitor. Now then, Cole, you said before that it wasn't 'red' like the others. I take it that you mean there's no red lyrium infection?"

Cole nodded. "A fading fragment of a memory that was once real, it cuts, pierces. It swims through the sea of his blood, armed with teeth like shards of sharp, splintered obsidian. It doesn't understand that it is dying now, not the man. It lashes out."

"Well, that was...oddly...poetic, but I have to say that I generally find descriptions of cutting and piercing to be less than reassuring," the Inquisitor said. She dabbed at the sweat on Blackwall's forehead with some leftover gauze, cradling his body with hers despite the strain of supporting his weight.

Cole ducked his head and said, "I'm sorry, but it _is_ better than...than _that_." He pointed in the direction they had found the red lyrium formations.

Solas had a thoughtful look on his face. "Demon's blood—an easy inference to make, given our earlier encounter with Imshael. It seems unlikely that he was exposed to very much of it, probably no more than a drop or two at most during the fight."

"And you're saying that's _good_ news?" the Inquisitor asked.

"Would you rather he had been exposed to red lyrium? So yes, it is good news," Solas replied, slightly exasperated by the question.

"Well, that is just _wonderful_ to hear," Blackwall said dourly, sweat still pouring off of him. "Not to rush you or anything, but could you stop fucking talking about it and just give me something?"

"Only if you promise to stop acting like a foul-mouthed twelve-year-old," Solas said, sounding faintly amused. "Just give me a few minutes to mix a draught. Cole will stay with you, but the Inquisitor must assist me."

Blackwall drew his knees up and rested his head on them, hunching over as the Inquisitor got up. She put her hand on his shoulder, and he grunted, waving her off with his good hand. Taking the bundle from Cole, she followed Solas out of the tent.

*

"You're worried about her, not yourself?" Cole asked in that way that made Blackwall groan inwardly over what might come next. Bad enough that the pain suddenly seemed to be radiating from his forearm to every damned part of his body now.

"Worried for her, lad—yes," he finally answered. He was marking time until Solas and Lady Trevelyan returned. It already felt as if it were taking an eternity, and Cole was definitely being...well, Cole. _I should probably just be grateful that nothing really strange has come flying out of his mouth yet._ Blackwall sighed and said, "She doesn't need me adding to her load with this." He raised his arm and pointed at it, even though the effort caused him additional pain.

Cole had a distant look on his face, but then he turned his gaze on Blackwall. "You shouldn't think that. It is because of you that the weight is lighter—sometimes, not all of the time."

"Riiiight. Thanks...I think," Blackwall said. Trying to keep himself distracted, he asked, "Can you see into her—the Inquisitor—like you can with the rest of us?"

Cole replied, "She asked me that once, but she was too bright—I told her that it was like counting birds against the sun. I don't always need to see inside to know things now. Becoming more real has taught me that, and I can see it...outside...when she is with you."

The boy seemed quite pleased by his observation, but it brought up certain questions that normally would have made Blackwall's head hurt on a good day. Maybe he should consider himself lucky that everything hurt so badly that he couldn't tell the difference anyway. He'd actually taken a sword to the ribs once, and it still hadn't caused the kind of pain that he was in right now. Magic...religion...the Maker's bloody will—these were the kinds of things that'd make you crazy if you spent too much time trying to make sense of it all. He generally preferred leaving the whole mess in the hands of the Chantry sisters for them to deal with, but now he had a personal stake in matters. "So, this 'too bright' thing, you mean...what—she's Maker-touched?"

"She is so bright, too bright because of everyone around her—they are...focused on her, and she magnifies everything that they are, everything that they hope for." Cole stopped and stared at him again. "But you are not Maferath, and she is not Andraste."

" _What?_ That's not even what I—where do you come up with this stuff?" he blustered.

"It's not what you asked, but it's what you were thinking. You still feel that you are the betrayer, but _she_ forgives—forgave."

Blackwall put his head down again and muttered, "I _really_ need to learn to not ask you about this kind of shit."

*

Solas had a flat board laid out by the fire. A small glass flask with water was resting on it, along with a mortar and pestle. He pointed at the board, and the Inquisitor placed the bundle on it. He then took half of an elfroot and cut it into pieces before placing it in the mortar's basin. "Elfroot for healing, and some embrium for its antipyretic properties." Solas added about an equal amount of embrium and then produced a vial.

"Elfroot normally relieves pain on contact, doesn't it?" the Inquisitor asked while watching the elf open the vial and measure out a small amount of milky liquid.

"Indeed. Unfortunately, a topical application is clearly useless in this case. If I had some demon's blood on hand, an antidote would be possible. We are, however, sadly lacking in that particular resource." Solas poured the liquid into the flask as he began crushing the herb mixture with the pestle. "We will simply have to settle for palliative care until the poison runs its course. He will be ill for at least a week or two depending on how strong his constitution is, but it is roughly equivalent to a severe snakebite or spider bite. Such a thing is perfectly survivable, but the pain and the side effects can be intense."

"And what's that?" she asked, pointing at the vial.

"Milk of the poppy—relieves pain more effectively than elfroot, but it is not to be used lightly. Make sure to use only as much as I showed you. It will also help him to sleep." Solas added the ground-up mash to the flask, and the resulting liquid turned a pale green. He swirled it around for a bit and seemed satisfied by the results.

*

Blackwall raised his head as the tent flap opened, relieved that Cole seemed content to stand there quietly. Solas and Lady Trevelyan entered, the elf carrying a green potion that he eyed with a mixture of suspicion and desperation.

"Here—" Solas started to say, but he was interrupted when Blackwall suddenly lunged for the flask. The promise of relief was to much to bear, and he was about ready to jump out of his skin. His nerve endings had started to feel like they'd been dipped in acid.

"Thom!" exclaimed the Inquisitor in some dismay as the furs fell away, revealing his nakedness. She hastily grabbed a fur and threw it over him as he sank back to the ground with the flask gripped in a hand that was, disturbingly, visibly shaking now.

He ignored Lady Trevelyan and the others, chugging the liquid down without stopping. Once he was done, the Inquisitor took the flask from him. He started coughing, but it soon tapered off. When he could finally speak, his voice was raspy as he said, "That tasted like horse's piss."

Solas stared hard at Blackwall. "You just drank _two_ full doses," he said, enunciating each word very carefully. "They were to be spaced twelve hours apart."

The Inquisitor started rubbing at her forehead with her free hand, on the verge of a headache of her own. "He will be alright, won't he?"

"Yes, but he cannot have another dose for another twenty-four hours, regardless of how much suffering he is in when next he wakes," Solas said. The elf's ears looked like they were about to start twitching. "His body size and metabolism may reduce the efficacy of the draught somewhat, so I am uncertain exactly when that will be. In any case, make sure to continue to clean the wound once per day using the tincture."

"Thank you, both of you," she said, nodding at Cole and Solas.

Solas touched Cole on the arm and said, "Let us leave now. He needs his rest." Over his shoulder, he added, "There is only enough milk of the poppy for a week or so. We should leave for Skyhold _if_ Blackwall is up to it by then." Blackwall exhaled in relief as the pain gradually receded to a bearable level.

When they were alone again, he said, "Maker, that is so much fucking _better_."

"Yes, I imagine so, seeing as you took _double_ the approved dosage. But at the rate this day is going, you really should have saved half of it for me." She helped him lie down and put his head on her lap, stroking his face gently. His eyes were already half-closed, the tight lines around them finally starting to relax. The Inquisitor started singing softly to him.

 

_Beautiful bird on wings so fair,_

_Fly away to your golden bower._

 

_Following fast through the air,_

_Your lover flies from his broken tower._

 

_Traveling upon darkened wings,_

_"To reach her, to reach her," he sings, he sings._

 

_Together for a night,_

_Together for a day,_

 

_Together in her bower,_

_The two of them lay._

 

"Didn't know you knew that one—almost sounds like us," he murmured drowsily as the effects of the draught spread through his body. "But you're the one best suited for singing, my Carys."

She smiled at him, even though he couldn't see it. "I think you sometimes forget that I'm a Marcher, too. I learned that song a long time ago from my mother, and I'll tell you the story behind the learning of it one day. Rest now, Thom."

The Inquisitor sat there quietly until Blackwall fell asleep, and then she bent down, lightly brushing her lips across his so as to avoid waking him. She carefully extricated herself and laid his head down gently before massaging her legs to get her circulation going again. And just in time at that—she heard iron-shod hooves clattering on the stones outside, along with a rising chorus of voices. It looked like her people had finally arrived.

*

A hush swept over everyone as the Herald emerged from the tent. She hated that, actually. It was like having the world come to a screeching halt every time she decided to do so much as take a piss, but it didn't last too long these days—an improvement compared to the first few months at both Haven and Skyhold. The hum of multiple conversations soon flooded in to fill the silence once they'd all had a chance to gawk at her, and the world seemed to start moving again. She surveyed the keep as people continued to file in, wondering how long it would take for the workers to make repairs and improvements. Their tents were in a secluded spot at least, so she was satisfied that Blackwall could rest peacefully even with construction work going on.

Amid the chaos of soldiers setting up tents and workers trying to organize themselves, she spotted a young man in leathers waving at her. He made a beeline straight for her. The young man put his arm across his chest and bowed slightly in salute. Blue-eyed and fair-haired, she vaguely remembered seeing him before at Skyhold but couldn't quite place him. There were just too many people, too many new faces. _Wait...wait...it'll come to me,_ she thought as a series of names tumbled through her head. "Ah...Willem, is it?"

"Yes, Your Worship," the runner said proudly. "Lady Josephine and Sister Leliana wanted these delivered to you." He rummaged through his pack for what looked like a ridiculously large number of documents and missives, all of which he handed to her before taking his leave of her. She watched as he walked away, thinking about the cost of war and wondering whether or nor Willem and others like him would be the ones to pay the price for her actions. She sighed and turned her attention to the parchments now in her hands. Managing to find an open table close to where the stonemasons were congregating, she dropped everything that she was carrying on top of it. It was win-win for everyone: she had a makeshift desk, and the masons wouldn't have to go very far to pester her for her decisions. One of them immediately rushed over with a stool after noticing her presence. While trying to separate the parchments into different piles, she could see the men starting to mass together like a flock of starlings, no doubt ready to descend on her as one.

 _Maker help Josephine if there are more wedding proposals for me or for my unwed siblings._ So far, only her eldest brother Liam, the family heir, had actually married. She eyed a number of the parchments with crests that she recognized with suspicion. Despite the issue of magic running in her family line, an increasing number of parties were now interested in either creating direct blood ties with the Trevelyans or currying her family's favor. This particular subject of blood ties generally made her either nauseous or angry—sometimes both—because it reminded her that the only reason that she was now a free woman instead of being married off to the boy to whom her parents had originally betrothed her was, ironically, her status as a mage.

Although she had been relieved to have escaped life as a living ornament solely intended to adorn a man's arm, she had only exchanged one kind of prison for another. In the end, a cage was still a cage, and she had chafed at being trapped in one of any kind. It didn't matter that the Ostwick Circle was more liberal than others or that she could visit with family; her life—even before she had started to display any magical ability—had never truly been her own. Cassandra had been in a similar position to hers, and the Seeker had seemed sympathetic when last they talked. The Inquisitor looked at the Anchor, its glow briefly flaring and suffusing her hand with light before she closed it into a fist. As she reflected on what her life had become, she supposed that in some small way at least, she should be grateful for receiving the mark branded into her hand, no matter how it had come about.

*

The days passed in a haze for Blackwall as he cycled between pain and relief, wakefulness and dreams. For far too many nights over the last six years, his dreams had largely consisted of nightmares about the carriage and the sound of its wooden doors splintering beneath his men's weapons...and the screams. It had been bad enough during the first year after the massacre that he often tried to drink himself into a drunken and dreamless stupor, and though the nightmares had lessened over time, he still had them. But now? Sometimes there were good dreams—the ones involving the present, not the purgatory of his past. _Skin so soft against his...her mouth kissing the jut of his hipbone before her lips and tongue began tracing a delicate path over his skin._ It was a pleasant memory and one in which he would have happily lingered, but a light touch on his chest woke him. He opened his eyes on the morning of the seventh day and found Lady Trevelyan there waiting by his side, just as she had been doing every single day during this whole miserable experience. To him, seeing her there was better than any fading wisp of a dream.

On the first day, she'd held his hair back when he was on his knees in the snow outside, throwing up because that double dose of the cure—or what passed for one—was almost worse than the poison running through his veins. Once it was over and his stomach stopped heaving, she had helped clean him up because he was too weak to do it in his own. And on all the days since then, she had been there to place a cool hand upon his fevered brow and to feed him gruel when he couldn't keep anything down—rabbit stew when he could.

 _Might be the unromantic side of love,_ he thought, _but it's probably the truest display of it...caring for someone day in and day out like she's done for me._ That she would be there for him when she had so much else to do had humbled him yet again. _And humility is something I could've done with more of a long time ago—before all the mistakes._ The whole experience of being this ill had shaken him just a bit, having reminded him of what had happened to his sister. When she'd died so suddenly, he'd been young enough himself that he hadn't really understood what was going on. He supposed that it had been his first real taste of death in a life long filled with it.

Lady Trevelyan squeezed his shoulder lightly and helped him sit, offering him that damnable green potion after he was up. _Emerald bloody piss, that's what that is._ He waved off the draught, feeling more like himself than he had in the last few days. "Don't need it now—I'm doing better, at least well enough to get by on my own," he said, but she could see that he was distracted by something.

Setting the flask aside, she said, "Tell me what you're thinking, Thom. You have that look about you when you're—"

"I'm _not_ brooding." He knew what she was going to say before she even said it, which brought a faint smile to his lips despite the ache in his heart. He was silent for a few moments before he continued to speak. "I was thinking about my sister...Liddy was her name. Suppose I haven't told you about her before—couldn't really, not with all the lies in the way."

She rubbed his back and said, "If it pains you, you needn't speak of it."

"No, it's alright...I think I want to. It's good to remember her, but it wasn't fair, you know? Her dying so young like that. One day she was there, and the next she was just...gone. She'd taken ill, but it didn't seem any different from any of the colds or sniffles you get as a child—guess it was, though."

"I'm so sorry," she said, pulling his head to her chest and resting it there. He offered up no resistance and closed his eyes briefly.

"She'd always been the light to my dark—a ray of sunshine that one. Maybe she was the better part of me. I only know that something changed after that.... _I_ changed."

"You loved her very much, didn't you?" she asked, stroking his hair before trying to work at some of the tangled knots.

"I did. And now I wonder what kind of person she'd be if she'd had the chance to grow up. I think she would've been strong and good and gentle...like you. I'd have made sure she married a proper gentleman, though—not anyone like me," he said with a loud laugh. He looked at her and saw her freeze for a moment. Concerned, he asked, "Did I say something wrong, love?"

"No...it's just that I was a fourth child, a daughter at that." "Ah," he said, following her line of thought. _Stepped in it, didn't I?_

" 'Ah,' indeed," she replied. Lady Trevelyan held her right hand out in front of him, palm up. A single flame began dancing in the air. "They had me betrothed before I could even walk or talk, but this is what saved me. He was certainly a nice enough boy—we _were_ introduced when I was older, of course—but I didn't love him. It was almost a relief after the magic first surfaced and I was no longer marriageable."

The flame winked out, and she resumed working at his hair. "I would _never_ have forced Liddy into a marriage against her will," Blackwall said flatly. "I just meant that I would've made sure that the man she chose for herself was worthy of her."

"I know," she said quietly. "What happened to me is not your fault, and I suppose that it worked out for the best, didn't it? Your choices brought you to me, and my curse...my _blessing_ brought me to you. Perhaps I really should be giving the Maker a little more credit." She laughed briefly.

He pulled away and turned to face her, giving her a wolfish grin. "If I've offended you in any way, my lady, you may order me to do anything you like." Then he leaned in close to whisper in her ear, "You could even order me to fuck you right now if you want, and I'd do it gladly. After all, I'm no proper gentleman."

Lady Trevelyan blushed briefly, and he grinned even more broadly at her reaction—just a _little_ bit of payback for the way she'd teased him on their first night at the keep. She cleared her throat and said, "I see that someone really is feeling much better...and this is a side of Thom Rainier that I could get used to, I think. I never wanted a gentleman anyway, just a good man—and you are that." For the first time in long while, hearing his true name didn't make him cringe or feel shame, particularly not when she distracted him by giving him an agonizingly slow and thorough kiss. After releasing him she said, "Unfortunately, it's neither the time, nor the place. And I'm afraid that you're a bit... _rank_...at the moment."

He sniffed at himself and wrinkled his nose at the scent of sour sweat and sickness that lingered on his body. "You may have a point there. But my offer still stands—maybe you'll take me up on it later back...home...at Skyhold?" It was strange to have that word—home—come tripping across his tongue, and stranger still to think of any place as home at all after all this time, but there it was: a tacit acknowledgment that his place was with her from now on for as long as she would have him.

"Oh, you can count on it—but only _after_ you have a good, long soak in a tub and familiarize yourself with some soap." She reached between his legs, squeezing his cock until he closed his eyes. He couldn't help but groan at the feel of her hand wrapped around him. "Maybe I'll even join you when you do."

"You're a temptress, you know that?" His blue eyes were dark with thwarted desire as she gave him another squeeze. He was half-stiff by the time she was done, and his breath came out in a low hiss when she removed her hand.

"Says the man who just offered to fuck me," she said, a grin of her own appearing on her face. "Tsk, tsk—with all those people right outside, and in broad daylight, no less. You _almost_ make me think you're a bit of an exhibitionist."

He thought he'd had the upper hand for once, but she'd managed to turn the tables on him again, as she often did. Still, he quite enjoyed their sparring even when he lost. Making the Inquisitor temporarily blush like a virgin would have to do as a consolation prize. "My lady, I capitulate to your demands," he said, nodding his head at her to signal defeat. "Just as long as you don't try to perfume me like bloody Dorian. None of those body oils either—had enough of all that nonsense after living in Orlais, and it's one thing I won't ever be going back to as Thom Rainier. Bunch of preening fops with their fucking masks and their fancy clothes, the whole lot of them—always despised that ridiculous Orlesian shit." There was a level of hatred and anger in his voice when he spoke of Orlais that she'd only heard once back in his prison cell in Val Royeaux, but it had been directed solely at himself that time.

"I promise I won't," she said soothingly. "Now don't get yourself so worked up about it, please? We're leaving for Skyhold tomorrow if you're up to it, so you should get some more rest...but if you want to talk about anything, I'm here...always."

"Rest, after you just did _that?_ I'll be lucky if my balls don't turn blue," he said with a snort, the anger in his voice replaced with a mixture of frustration and amusement. "Maybe we'll talk later, just not right now, eh? And you won't be able to stop me from getting on a horse tomorrow if it means going home. I...ah...may need some help with my armor, though. Don't want to strain my arm if I can help it."

She patted him on the leg and said, "Of course, but I should be going now. Thanks to Josephine and Leliana, I still have rather a lot of paperwork to go through, seeing as I've been doing my level best to avoid it for the last few days."

Blackwall let out a loud guffaw at that. "I _will_ say that the life of an army captain sometimes seemed to consist of nothing but paperwork. You'd be surprised—so would Dorian, I imagine. The man thinks I'm an illiterate sod just because I swing a sword, not a staff. Anyway, enough about me and the past for the moment—you should get on with it, love."

"Alright, I'll leave the draught with you just in case."

She smiled at him before leaving the tent, and he lay back down on the bedroll with his arms crossed beneath his head. The wound was still a bit tender, but it seemed to be healing well. He let out a sigh. _Orlais...fucking Orlais._ It wasn't often that he got so angry, but he had decidedly mixed feelings about the last twenty-odd years of his life. He was proud of being a soldier and of being damned good at his job, yet he'd always had a hunger back in his younger days that seemed like it would never be satisfied—a need for more, for better. When he'd seen all the riches and luxuries and power of the nobility dangled in front him of like a glittering bauble time and again, he had wanted his share of it. In the end, he'd hated the Orlesians—and ultimately himself—for what he had allowed to happen because of his greed and his pride. And it was only after everything he'd worked towards had been destroyed in one instant that he had finally, finally been able to see how empty it had all been. Sometimes you just had to fall from grace before you understood who you really were and who you really wanted to be. Although it had been a hard lesson for him that change didn't come without a price, it had been a necessary one in his estimation.

*

Solas was standing by himself after waking from his Fade dream. A fortress standing like an island of stone in a sea of sand seemed to hang shimmering in the air in front of him as a desert mirage would, and he could still see the small figures in their shining silver armor standing on the battlements. Wardens, he knew. At one point, he saw darkspawn rush forward in a wave that crashed futilely upon its granite shore. He shook his head to clear his mind of the memory and instead turned his attention to the humans still buzzing about the keep in the falling darkness, though he was still deep in thought over what he had experienced.

"You see them as ants, scurrying along heedlessly—all action, no thought," Cole said, emerging from a nearby cluster of snow-covered pines now that his self-appointed duty of watching over Solas was done. "But they are capable of more than that—you said so yourself."

"Are they? Yes, sometimes they can work together...overcome their limitations...but then I awaken from the dream and see them as they are." Solas rubbed at the back of his neck to loosen it up. "That is when I am reminded of what has been lost. I've seen them through the ages, and I _know_ them in a way that you don't. Together they are as a raging river that overflows its bounds, destroying everything that it touches in its unthinking fury. They cannot change, not as a whole." Maybe there should have been more anger in his voice, but much of it had been burned away over the years. There was more sorrow and grief than anything else now.

"Old hurts, old memories. Even so, you still want them to be more...you keep trying because you fear that if they are not that—cannot be that—then all you have done is in vain."

"I...do not wish to speak of this," Solas said as he pinched the bridge of his nose, the shadow of a deep pain flitting across his eyes.

"You wonder if it will be different this time, hoping that it will be," Cole said. "You see something in _her,_ don't you? It reminds you of what was lost—what you want to bring back. But she is only a single drop of water in a flood that races ever forward and brings with it change—even as it sometimes destroys—and you cannot reconcile these two things."

"I suppose there is some truth in that. She is _of_ them, but at the same time, she is...different," Solas said.

Cole awkwardly put his hand on the mage's shoulder. "You say they don't change, but they do— _I_ do. You even asked me to teach you something on the nature of change, but you already knew the answer. It hurts to change, but without pain, there can be no learning or growth. And without the will for it, there can be no change at all—not for you, not for me, not for anyone."

"I wish that things could be otherwise...that I could do something other than what I know that I must, but...I think that it is simply not possible for me. I thank you, though, my friend. You have given me much to consider," Solas said.

 _What if...what if I'm...wrong?_ He dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it had come to him. They walked together in companionable silence all the way back to their tents, but the thought was still buried there in a corner of his mind. And if he were being honest with himself, the whole problem went back to "gods" who'd all thought themselves infallible. Had he _really_ been right to do what he had done, both now and back then? As he stared into their campfire, he found that he couldn't answer that question with any degree of certainty.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Blackwall well enough to travel, the group starts heading back to Skyhold. However, a storm forces them to stop at a small village that they passed through on their way to Sahrnia. When they arrive, they find it a much changed place - and not for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, if you're still reading, this isn't the cheeriest chapter ever. And since Chapter 4 is going to be the second half of this particular arc, don't expect it to be particularly cheery either - heh.
> 
> I don't really do light and fluffy particularly well, so serious and dark(ish) it is! That being said, I'm not GRRM dark and won't be killing off any main characters.
> 
> One note on the dialogue: if you haven't dragged Blackwall to the Hissing Wastes and heard his stories about Wilfred triggered by the tombs, well, that's what the Wilfred-related bit refers to. :P

They ate a quick breakfast and left at the break of dawn in an attempt to avoid creating too much of a stir over the Herald's departure. Not everyone was up at such an early hour, but those who were whispered amongst themselves as the Inquisitor passed by. She heard some of them saying _"Your Worship"_ in awestruck voices, and it was nearly impossible to avoid cringing every time it happened. Eventually, they managed to make their way to the newly repaired stables that housed their horses. The guards stationed at the entrance saluted as the small group finally passed through the gates of Suledin Keep. They rode single file most of the way until they reached flat ground and the road widened enough for them to spread out. The Inquisitor and Blackwall were together up front, while Solas and Cole followed behind on their own mounts. Two pack horses brought up the rear, carrying all their camping equipment.

Trees lining the roadside stood like silent sentinels blanketed all in white as the snow began to fall. It left everything—including themselves—covered in a light dusting of ice crystals. Despite being at a lower elevation, it soon grew cold enough for everyone's breaths to emerge as puffs of steam, and the snow only fell harder as they continued onward. Blackwall nudged his horse close enough to Lady Trevelyan's that their legs were almost touching.

"How are you?" he asked, concerned over her lack of warm clothing. Exactly how mages got by dressed as they did was something that he had never understood—least practical outfits he'd ever seen. _She ought to have a cloak on at minimum._ That thought prompted him to stop his horse and rummage around in one of his saddlebags.

Lady Trevelyan drew to a stop beside him. "Shouldn't I be asking that of you? You've only just recovered."

"Right...as... _rain,_ " he said, pausing between words as he retrieved his fur-lined cloak and handed it to her. "And do not fear, my lady, it is clean—well, f _airly_ clean."

She laughed at his bad pun and put it on, feeling warmer almost immediately. "Thank you, that's sweet of you."

He smiled for a moment and found that it felt surprisingly good to make a joke about his name. It was a bit like probing at a sore tooth and finding that it suddenly didn't hurt anymore. He'd mostly gotten used to her calling him Thom, but Rainier...he still associated that name with something ugly, something he didn't ever want to be again; and it sometimes made him uneasy to hear it, even when it came from her lips. If nothing else, maybe this was a small step forward for him. "Mages, always with your heads in the clouds—or the Fade. Not sure what you'd do without me," he said, shaking his head.

"Freeze, probably," she said, pulling the cloak around her. The Inquisitor kicked her horse gently to get it to start moving again. "I mean, that's _obviously_ the sole reason I keep you around—to protect me from sudden snowstorms."

He nudged his own mount into a trot to keep pace with hers and grinned beneath his helmet. "I thought it was to warm your bed."

"That too," she said agreeably.

*

They'd traveled a good ten miles, but the storm was now threatening to turn into a blizzard. The horses seemed tired as they slowly picked their way through inches of snow, and the Inquisitor looked up at the sky, swearing under her breath in a distinctly unladylike manner.

"What was that, my lady?" Blackwall asked, raising both eyebrows.

"You heard me, Thom," she said through gritted teeth. "My exact words were: 'I want this fucking snow to fucking stop... _now._ ' "

He frowned and said, " _You_ are picking up some very bad habits from me, my lady. Maybe I ought to put you over my knee later—can't have Lady Vivienne hearing such coarse words coming from that lovely mouth of yours when we get back to Skyhold."

"Promise?" she asked, her voice filled with mischief.

He shook his head and laughed. "I should know better by now. You're incorrigible _and_ insatiable."

"Anyway, Vivienne isn't the one who survived an avalanche and then spent days wandering through the fucking snow while freezing half to death. I _think_ I've earned the right to complain about it at this point," she said, shivering a little now despite the cloak.

"But I like the snow!" Cole protested from behind.

"Lad, you wouldn't be saying that if you'd ever had to dig yourself out of five feet of snow _after_ your tent was buried in it overnight," Blackwall said, turning in his saddle to look at the boy.

"Is this another Wilfred story?" the Inquisitor asked. "That last one did _not_ end well, I have to say."

"No, it was just me. I was out by myself a few years back, in between jobs as a sellsword—keeping a low profile like I've said—but it was before I'd ever met Warden-Constable Blackwall," he said.

"Ah, a story about _just_ you? I'm almost more interested in hearing one of those," she said. He'd already told her how about how he'd drifted around, taking jobs to earn enough to keep him in his cups, so it didn't come as any shock to hear it again.

 _Maker knows I don't deserve you or your forgiveness, but I am grateful for both._ He wanted to say those words aloud but held back because they were with Solas and Cole. "Sorry, my lady. I can't say that this one was particularly exciting—just me using my sword to dig my way out of the snow. No ghasts involved." Blackwall then turned in his saddle to face the silent apostate. "Say, Solas, how _do_ you mages normally manage to stay warm in this kind of weather? Do you just...magic something up?" He waggled his gloved fingers in a bad approximation of some of the gestures he'd seen the mages perform.

Solas sighed and held up his hand, which was briefly wreathed in bright tongues of flame. "Do you mean something like this? Don't be ridiculous—no mage, however skilled they might be, could keep a fire like this burning for any great length of time."

"Then how do you stay warm?"

Solas sighed even more loudly than before, realizing that Blackwall wouldn't let the matter drop. "We shave off the beards of warriors who won't stop asking annoying questions, and _then_ we weave very small blankets out of the hair. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

Blackwall laughed and asked, "Not a fan of friendly conversation, Solas?"

Solas replied, "Friendly conversation? Ah, I see...then let _me_ ask you this: how do you warriors manage to stay warm? I am assuming that you do not _all_ come equipped with beards."

Blackwall thought about it briefly and said, "Simple. You just keep downing Chasind sack mead until you pass out. Then you don't feel much of anything—least of all the cold."

"I see. Then that would also explain why you and Dorian seem to get along so famously of late, this shared... _appreciation_...for alcohol." Solas briefly wondered how a man his age could act like such a child sometimes.

"You should try some. It'd loosen you up a bit," Blackwall said. "Remind you of your younger days when your blood was up, eh?"

"Not so early in the day, gentlemen—save it for later," the Inquisitor said, cutting in. She shot each of them a warning look.

"As you wish, my lady." Blackwall gave her a mock bow and performed a flourish with his arm.

"What was the name of that village we stopped at on this side of the border? Boisvert?" she asked.

"Grandiose name for a village in the middle of nowhere—there aren't even any trees...fine, there _are_ trees, just not a lot of them," he said, grudgingly acknowledging that the name was not completely inaccurate. "In other words, it's typically Orlesian of them. But yes, it's a few miles on." Blackwall spat on the ground as if trying to rid himself of something distasteful. His problem was not actually with the average Orlesian or the nation of Orlais itself as an entity, it was with the nobles and the games that they played, grinding down those beneath them without giving a single thought to anyone or anything besides themselves. He wished he'd never gotten involved in any of it, but you couldn't wish your past away or run from it forever. In time, there was always a reckoning.

"We'd best try to make it there before evening," the Inquisitor said. She tried to spur her mount on, but the mare seemed content to ignore her, and she finally gave up. "If the horses decide to co-operate that is," she added, snapping her reins in frustration.

"You just need to know how to talk to them." Blackwall leaned over and whispered something in the mare's ear, which twitched in response. "A little sweet talk usually works wonders."

"I see that Dennet's not our only horsemaster," the Inquisitor said. She was pleasantly surprised when the horse suddenly seemed more compliant.

"Done a bit of riding in my time. I'm no chevalier, but...an army can move faster that way." He added the last part in hesitantly, not sure why he felt a moment of reluctance to do so. Maybe because it reminded him of all the times he had led his own men into battle—the men that he had ultimately betrayed. Well, if Lady Trevelyan ever chose to directly ask him anything more about his past, he would answer honestly even if it dredged up bad memories. One of the other lessons he had learned from the mess he'd made of his life was that nothing truly worth having was easily won or held on to, and he didn't want to lose her trust or her love now, not after having already strained both close to the breaking point. _And you alone are worth any sacrifice,_ he thought as he looked at her.

"Just make sure that you don't use those sweet-talking skills of yours on other women, Thom." She gave him a sidelong glance, evidently satisfied with a bit of teasing for now.

"Perish the thought, my lady. There is only you." He reached out for her hand across the gap between them and then brushed his lips across her knuckles.

*

Cole watched the snow with fascination, not visibly bothered by it. This was in direct contrast to everyone else whose teeth were audibly chattering by the time they came upon the first signs of habitation. The storm's eastward progress had stalled, so they were slightly ahead of it now. That's why they were able to see the razed field where winter wheat had once grown. The last time they'd passed the farm on the western outskirts of the village, it had been filled with waves of grain tinted gold by the setting sun. Now there was nothing but charred and blackened stalks as far as the eye could see.

Everyone came to a halt and dismounted. The coppery tang of blood mixed with the scent of burnt flesh and smoke in the air made the Inquisitor's stomach churn. It wasn't that she hadn't seen her share of death—and on a much larger scale for that matter—it was that she had met the people who had lived here. Knowing someone always made it worse for her. The farmer and his wife had been an older couple who had flagged them down as they were leaving the village for Sahrnia, insisting that they take some freshly baked loaves of bread and cheese with them. Their son had been one of the guardsmen in town as she recalled, although she hadn't caught his name at the time. _Good people, decent people. This shouldn't have happened to them._

Blackwall saw the look on her face and squeezed her shoulder. "If this is too difficult for you, I can go check on my own. I'm used to it, sorry to say."

She shook her head and said, "I have to do this, but I'd certainly appreciate if you'd come with me."

"Of course. I'll not leave you unguarded, _especially_ not now," he replied. If anyone were still here, they certainly didn't have any place to hide out here. He spied the barn at the far end of the farm—probably still standing because the ground around it had been bare and the fire couldn't reach it. "We should check the barn first to see if it's clear—best place to spend the night if the rest of the village is like this."

Cole stroked his horse's mane as the creature whinnied nervously and said, "They don't scent anyone in _there_ now. They say it is a safe place with sweet hay and cool water, but the other smells are scaring them—fear and pain carried on the wind like a dark song, long after the dying."

That told the Inquisitor all she needed to know. "We'll get the horses settled in before doing anything else," she said.

*

There was more than enough space in the barn for all of them, although the Inquisitor wasn't particularly keen on sleeping near horses. She was certainly fond enough of the creatures themselves, but she didn't enjoy having all her clothes reeking of them. _That's one thing I never had to worry about back in Ostwick._ The structure was in good repair and seemed like it could withstand just about anything, but she gave the loft above them a rueful smile and shook her head at the memory of her first night with Blackwall. After tying off his mount, Blackwall walked over to her and turned his gaze upward. He winced slightly and ran a hand through his hair when he saw what she was looking at.

"Any regrets?" she asked him.

"Being with you? None. Leaving you like that...yes," he answered after a moment of silence, his shoulders tensed as if he were expecting harsh words or a physical blow. When the Inquisitor instead gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, he relaxed almost immediately.

 _Not everything always needs to be put into words, does it, my Thom?_ She reached up and touched his face briefly in reassurance before turning her attention back to the business at hand. "We should get this done at once, as unpleasant as it may be. Do you think we should bring Cole along?"

"Don't see why not. The lad certainly comes in handy, and...I suppose I trust him." Blackwall seemed a bit surprised with himself for saying that and then gave her a shrug.

"Solas!" she shouted.

"Yes, Inquisitor?" he called down from the loft where he was setting up their bedrolls. There was a considerable amount of rustling and thumping going on overhead. "Watch the horses, would you? I'm taking Thom and Cole with me to scout around," she said, straining her voice a bit as she tried to make herself loud enough to be heard.

"Certainly," replied the elf, "but you should return before nightfall. Those responsible may not have gone far and could end up backtracking if the storm catches up with them."

Blackwall nodded in agreement. "He's right, so let's get to it."

*

The stone base of the destroyed farmhouse was still standing, but the roof was completely gone. A few loose pieces of thatching that had miraculously survived the flames were scattered on the ground, seeming lonely and forlorn. Cole appeared distracted, looking off to the east while ignoring his two companions. It was as if whatever was over there were exerting a magnetic pull on him, so Blackwall and the Inquisitor let him be and went inside. They found the remains of the couple in what used to be the kitchen. Their corpses had partially melted into each other, lovers in a grotesque embrace that had left them more unified in death than they had ever been in life.

Blackwall eyed Lady Trevelyan who had moved to a burnt-out corner of the room. She had bent over and started retching, finally vomiting a thin stream of bile. After wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she grimaced. "Better now, love?" he asked.

"Not really. Now I smell like horseshit _and_ this." She sounded upset and held up her sleeve, but she waved him off as he took a step towards her. "Don't bother with me—I just need a moment. _They_ are the ones who are important right now," she said, referring to the remains of the farmer and his wife.

Instead of going to her, Blackwall got down on his haunches in order to more closely examine the corpses. Despite the condition of the bodies, he could see where a sword's blade had stabbed through each of them. _Sloppy—certainly looks like he didn't know what he was doing._ "You see this, right here?" He pointed at the ragged wounds on the barely recognizable male corpse. "It's clumsy work, and the one who did it _didn't_ land a killing blow on the first try—it took him several goes. The other one's the same."

"And your assessment of this?" Lady Trevelyan forced herself to look at the wounds that Blackwall was describing. At least she no longer felt her gorge rising when she looked at the two corpses.

"I can tell you that whoever did this probably didn't know the difference between his blade and his arsehole—that, or he was scared," Blackwall said as he got up.

Cole finally seemed to snap out of his fugue state and was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, intently focused on the bodies. Curiously, the wooden frame of the doorway was still intact and untouched, even though the surrounding walls had largely burned away.

"He wanted to stop it, to stand in the way—like you and the carriage—but he was frightened. _Mother...Father...I'm sorry, so sorry. I didn't want this to happen."_ Cole stepped across the threshold and then said, "Bound in chains of blood unbroken—unbreakable—he screams on the inside, forced to watch as his body moves of its own accord. A sword falls from shaking hands, the blade wet and dripping."

Blackwall paled at Cole's words, looking stricken as his own memories seemed to flood back, fresh as the night they'd been burned into him six years ago. His hand involuntarily wrapped itself tightly around his sword's hilt, and he remained silent as he tried to collect himself. "If you mean what I _think_ you mean, then some fucking blood mage was responsible for all of this?" His voice was slightly uneven and rough when he finally addressed Cole.

"Yes," Cole answered. He paused as if he were processing something or making a new mental connection and then added, "Remembering _does_ hurt...and I...apologize for pulling the pain to the surface again. That is what a friend would say, isn't it?"

Blackwall cleared his throat, trying to find the right words. "It was only the truth, and as difficult as it can be to hear it sometimes, _you_ don't have to apologize to me for speaking it. I'm the one who should be apologizing to—" He stopped before finishing his sentence and instead said, "Lad, you needn't worry about my feelings is all I'm trying to say."

"But I do." Cole seemed puzzled by his statement, as if it were an impossibility for him to _not_ care.

"I just mean that you shouldn't blame yourself if I...don't take things entirely well," Blackwall said.

The Inquisitor kept listening to them talk, but she now began to inspect both the doorframe and the floorboards, which had also been untouched by the flames, more closely. "He must have been standing right here in order to watch as he forced their own son to murder them."

"Sweet Maker," Blackwall said. "I've known my share of bastards—hell, I _was_ a right bastard—but that just doesn't seem human."

"We do a good enough job of creating monsters in this world all on our own—are you really that surprised to see something like this? In any case," she said, nodding the direction of the corpses, "this unknown mage clearly needed to be in close proximity to the guardsman. Like running a dog on a leash, the mage was bound to his victim just as much as his victim was bound to him—that's the best way that I can put it. It seems like a crude, untutored form of control if you compare it to what happened in Fiona's case. That her behavior in Val Royeaux and Redcliffe was the result of blood magic is obvious—you'd have to be blind, deaf, _and_ dumb to not have realized it—but the difference is that Alexius was far more subtle and adept when he exerted his control over the former Grand Enchanter."

"Great, that answers _one_ question, but why isn't anyone here? You'd think they'd have come by now and buried the bodies at the very least. We might be on the outskirts of the village, but there's no way the others didn't notice this," Blackwall said.

"You should go back to the barn and stay with Solas," Cole said quietly. "It would not be good for you to see...things."

Blackwall narrowed his eyes, having some idea of what they might find in the village proper. "No, I won't run and hide in the fucking barn," he said, refusing to do as Cole was suggesting.

"I will stay with her, and I will keep her safe," Cole said, his voice filled with urgency. "You trust me—I can see it in your thoughts."

"You're right, I do. But fixing this...fixing _me_ can't happen if I hide from all the bad shit in the world that _might_ upset me or remind me of what I did. I will handle it. Do you understand?" Blackwall was firm but gentle as he spoke.

Cole looked at the Inquisitor imploringly, but she shook her head. "He needs to do this, just like I needed to see these bodies and not turn away from them," she said. "We'll get Solas before we go on. The horses should be fine on their own for a while."

*

As they passed through the wooden palisades of the village, the stench of decomposition hung in the air like a fetid cloud. It was a small mercy that the cold kept it from being worse. There was a gallows near the town guards' barracks, but it was empty and no bodies were visible nearby—which begged the question of exactly where the smell was coming from. The stone buildings around them were packed so tightly together that the side streets were permanently cloaked in shadow, but they appeared to be clear of bodies from what little they could make out.

Cole seemed unusually agitated, and the Inquisitor put her hand on his arm. "Is anything the matter?" she asked.

"I can feel it more strongly here. It reaches out across the Veil—tattered and torn, wounded by each horror that was visited upon them," Cole said with a shudder.

Blackwall said, "Sorry, but could someone please explain what that means for the one person who _isn't_ a mage or a spirit turned real boy?"

Solas chose to step in as the Inquisitor was about to answer. "Please, allow me. Deaths—violent ones in particular—can lead to a thinning of the barrier between the physical world and the Fade...when they occur in great number. Cole senses that this has happened here."

"Could've told you _that_ from the smell. I can recognize it for what it is after all these years," Blackwall said.

Solas snorted and replied, "And I'm surprised that you can smell anything at all besides yourself, given your current state of hygiene, but we have a more pressing concern. Events such as these tend to attract attention from the other side, and we do not know what may have come through."

Normally, a comment like that wouldn't have bothered him, especially since he did his fair share of teasing others, but Blackwall was still on edge. His irritation bled through as he said, "Oh, well you'll forgive me for not having had a chance to bathe while I was laid out flat for a week thanks to that fucking _demon_ that I kept off of you. Now am I to take it that you mean _another_ demon might have come through? Or was it one of your Fade spirits? Because they're one and the same to me."

Solas looked at him sharply. "Is Cole a demon in your eyes? It would behoove you to _occasionally_ put some thought into what you say before opening your mouth."

A chastened Blackwall said, "Sorry, lad—you know that I wasn't talking about you, right?"

"I know," Cole said. His voice held no recrimination, which made Blackwall feel worse about it until Cole added, "But I am...glad that you see me as one of you. To be considered more than what I... _was_...it is good."

"Men," the Inquisitor said, her mouth set in a thin line. She looked at Solas and Blackwall as if they were both members of a completely alien species and crossed her arms. "If you're done with your male posturing or whatever this is, perhaps we could go and check the barracks first?" She didn't bother waiting for either of them to respond before starting off on her own.

*

Rows of empty, unmade beds lined the walls of the barracks, not a soul in sight anywhere. They did, however, notice that most of the swords were gone from their racks. It was as if the guardsmen had just gotten up and left en masse. _Were they the hunters or just more victims at this point?_ the Inquisitor wondered.

Blackwall said, "No signs of a struggle or violence of any kind here. Maybe we should move on and search the rest of the buildings?"

"We'll start with the west side and see what we can find," said the Inquisitor.

*

As they combed the western half of the village, they moved along the side streets, going from house to house in an orderly fashion. Every single one of them was completely devoid of inhabitants, and like the barracks, there appeared to be no signs of actual disturbance. Each time they entered an abandoned home, it felt as if the people who lived there had stepped out for only a moment and would be returning any minute. Upstairs in a room in the very last building they had left to check on the area, the Inquisitor picked up a child's poppet that had been lying on a small bed, looking into its button eyes before slowly putting it down again.

Blackwall watched her but said nothing as she wordlessly left the bedroom of the little girl who had once slept here, dreaming of a future that she would never see. What _could_ you say about something like that anyway? It was just another sad remnant of a life cut far too short, one of many that they had seen here. For him, it was also an uncomfortable reminder of his sister. He had loved her and always would, but this village felt tainted and wrong somehow. To even speak Liddy's name in a place like this would be tantamount to sacrilege.

 _Small blue flowers bedecking flowing hair that streamed out behind her as she ran ahead of him._ He shook his head, remembering how he'd chased after her, always worried about her getting hurt. Blackwall picked the doll up in one hand and tucked it into his belt. _One day, I will set the bodies down—all of them—but for now, I'll carry one more with me._ Before following Lady Trevelyan down the stairs, he closed the door behind him. He knew it was a futile gesture to try to preserve the room as it was when few manmade structures withstood the ravages of nature and time, but it was still something he wanted to do.

*

The thick trunk of a crooked oak blocked their view of the village green, but the odor of rot and decay that had assaulted them when they first entered the village seemed to be growing stronger as they approached it. The Inquisitor dreaded what they would find. She kept her eyes up at first, focusing on the tangle of limbs and twigs that delicately fanned out from a bare chestnut tree. Even in winter, it was beautiful. What she saw as they finally rounded the oak tree was not. She'd done quite a lot of things that had given her nightmares ever since the day she had first arrived in Haven, but she had been able to accept everything that she had done as necessary acts of violence. It was the toll exacted from her because she bore the Anchor. This, on the other hand, was violence for its own sake. _Pure, unequivocal evil._

Solas said something that sounded like a blessing in Elvish, while Blackwall had a resigned look on his face, as if he'd seen this all before and would never quite escape its reach. Meanwhile, Cole stayed glued to the Inquisitor's side, apparently taking some comfort in being near her. Maybe the brightness he'd spoken of within her helped to blot out the darkness that surrounded them. At first, all she saw was a jumble of strange shapes that weren't quite recognizable, but the scene in front of her quickly resolved itself into one of obscene carnage once her mind was able to wrap itself around what she was seeing. Swords sprouted from the ground like strange silver flowers, limbs strewn here and there on the ground around them. A leg, bloated and dark, lay near a torso that seemed to have...things...moving beneath its skin.

The Inquisitor gagged as she saw the head of a woman staring blindly at her, its eyes a milky, glazed white. Blackwall immediately grabbed her and gave her a shake to make her focus on him instead of what she was looking at. "Stop and take a breath. You're not weak, my lady, but maybe you should go back now and take Cole with you." He looked at Solas who nodded in agreement. "I just want to spare you this sight, Carys," he said, casting propriety and rank aside in public for a moment.

"It's too late for that, Thom," she said, her voice sounding unusually hollow to her own ears. At least he'd kept her from vomiting again. _Once a day is more than enough,_ she thought.

"Your eyes are starting to look like mine now, you know," Blackwall said, his expression enigmatic. "I never wanted that to happen to you."

She pulled free from his grip and straightened herself up. "It was always going to happen sooner or later. We haven't just been playing at war this whole time." "

I guess not, my lady. Doesn't mean you need to subject yourself further to this. That's what hard men like me are for." He gave her a bitter smile.

Cole's eyes darted between the two of them, and he seemed distraught as he said, "I was... _wrong._ It wasn't you who needed protecting, it was her."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Cole," the Inquisitor said, patting him on the back. "That's part of what it is to be human. Besides, I'm not as delicate as you think."

"And _this_ is what it is to be an abomination," Solas said, looking at the tableau in disgust. "Whatever this mage was before, _it_ is no longer human. Not even one of...the more powerful Circle-trained mages could do this." He had almost said "your kind." _Petty, vicious, power-hungry, short-sighted, lacking in wisdom._ That's what he had believed of most humans, with the exception of the Inquisitor. However, Solas was coming to the realization that this was an unfair judgment of them as a whole, in light of the many other people he had come to know. And he also had to acknowledge that his own kind—and he did not mean the Dalish—had been no better than any of the shorter-lived races.

There was a large heap of bodies with a swarm of flies that buzzed around it in a cloud as thick as smoke. The Inquisitor tried to ignore it and looked at the dark, clotted streaks on the dead grass. She said, "Someone moved these corpses. If we're dealing with an abomination, it probably has one or more thralls."

"Then I feel sorry for the poor bastards," Blackwall said. He walked past the bodies, checking for footprints on the ground. "Five sets of prints heading east. Shit. Either we track them now, or we'll probably lose our chance."

"Stop," Cole said. _"Take the blow, the blood, the pain. If I pretend, they won't know. If I keep my eyes closed, they won't see me."_ He walked over to bodies and started pushing them aside, not caring about the fat maggots that spilled forth or the flies.

Blackwall's jaw almost dropped as he watched Cole manhandling a particularly heavy corpse, but the boy was stronger than he looked. "What in the hell are you doing?"

"Still alive. She's still _alive,_ " Cole said. "Too many impressions, thoughts, feelings...I couldn't see her." He tugged a thin white arm free, and then he pulled harder, finally extricating a small girl—maybe aged ten—from the pile.

The girl moaned, her lips tinged blue from the cold. Blackwall froze at first but started walking towards Cole and the girl in halting steps. He carefully took her in his arms and said, "My lady, I'm afraid that I'll be needing my cloak back."

Lady Trevelyan undid the clasp and wrapped the child up as best she could after trying to clean her off, temporarily shocked into speechlessness. Finding her voice again, she asked, "Cole, are there _any_ other survivors here?"

"No," he said. "She is the only one."

Solas looked from the unconscious girl to the trail and back again, realizing that a choice had to be made. "What will you do, Inquisitor? Care for the child or chase the monster? We cannot do both."

The Inquisitor responded without a moment's hesitation. "She needs to be tended to first—we'll deal with the rest later."

The elf nodded. In truth, he hadn't really expected her to do any differently when it came to saving an innocent life. "Then we must get her back to the barn and see what injuries she has, though I fear that the damage to her mind will be far greater than the damage to her body."

They walked in silence all the way back as Blackwall carried the girl. When they finally crossed the threshold, he looked down at his charge and shook his head. "You know, the Maker has to have a _really_ twisted fu...sense of humor to do something like this," he said to Lady Trevelyan, narrowly avoiding swearing in front of the child.

"I don't think you'll get any argument out of me on that," she said, brushing some hair out of the girl's face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they've found an unconscious survivor, the Inquisitor and the rest of the group have a new charge to take care of. As they try to figure out what to do with her, they're forced to take shelter in the barn until the storm passes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this does get E-rated, as I finally do have a decidedly smutty sex scene (what can I say, I was formatting someone else's terrible novel, and I went: "Hey, I can write a better sex scene than this crap, AND it will be grammatically correct!").
> 
> I've actually been done with the chapter for about a month before posting, but I kept editing away, as per usual. I guess it probably didn't help matters that I finally set up my PS4 and have played Bloodborne obsessively for two weeks straight now... *cough*

Blackwall put the girl down as gently as he could and moved some bales of hay together to form a crude bed a safe distance away from the horses. There was no way she was going up that ladder, so he went through the rest of their gear and set up a spare bedroll on top of the bales. _A living child, not a dead one. When Cole was trying to warn me off earlier...I didn't think he meant this._

"So, how is she?" Blackwall asked.

Solas had already walked over to the girl and knelt by her side as he began his examination. "There is a deep gash on the back of her head and bruising around the site of the wound. Not a sword wound...maybe a blow from a mailed fist."

Blackwall grunted in response. "Doesn't explain why she's still out. This had to have taken place days ago. Is she catatonic from the mental strain of her ordeal, or is it something physical...like a severe concussion?"

"Hmm. Either one is possibility," Solas said as he carefully felt the site of the injury. "I do not feel any breaks in the skull, and there does not seem to be an excessive amount swelling."

"Just make sure to keep the girl away from that damned surgeon at Skyhold when we get back, no matter what happens. _She_ thinks that advanced medical care consists of leeches and drilling holes in people's heads," Blackwall said sourly.

Solas had a contemplative look on his face. "There are legitimate applications of those techniques, but we can discuss it later. It would be best if we could get her cleaned up as soon as possible so that I can apply elfroot to her wounds."

"I'll go find something you can bathe her in. We could all do with cleaning up after today anyhow," Blackwall said. Lady Trevelyan was watching him, and he sighed after noticing her attention. "Yes, my lady?"

She grabbed his arm and took him aside, away from the others. "Did I do the right thing?" she asked urgently.

He let out a short bark of laughter at her question. "You're asking _me_ that? For what it's worth, you wouldn't be the woman I love if you'd done anything else. You'd be just another general, and the world already has plenty of them." He cupped her chin in his hand and gave her a lingering kiss. "To be honest, I thought you were going to ask after me again."

Lady Trevelyan looked up at him and said, "Ah, so _that's_ what the sighing was about. I believed you when you told Cole that you could handle things, and you have—which is more than I can say about myself."

He smiled faintly at that. "Don't be ashamed by how you reacted earlier. I've seen soldiers who've fought longer than you undone by less. Now then, any requests before I go, my lady? Should I bring you back some expensive soaps, or would fine perfumes suit your fancy better?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Just come back before dark," she said.

Blackwall gave her a disapproving frown. "You worry too much. The only danger I'm in is of getting snowed on right now."

"Bull nicknamed _you_ Furrows for a reason, not me," she said, nipping at his neck hard enough to make him wince.

"Careful with those teeth of yours," he said, kissing her throat in the exact spot that he knew made her shiver. With a smirk on his face, he whispered in her ear, "Or I _will_ have you begging me to fuck you before the night is out. And all I'll have to do is to tell you in great detail about how I'll spread your—"

Lady Trevelyan laughed and immediately spun him around to interrupt him, a maneuver that worked only because he allowed it. She gave him a slight shove to get him moving and said, "I'll behave myself, so long as _you_ do."

Blackwall turned towards her and gave her a decidedly smug look, but his expression turned sober when he said, "I'll be back in no time, love...but do watch over the girl while I'm gone."

"You don't even need to ask," she said, well aware that he'd already formed an attachment to the child on some level. Whether it was because of some resemblance to his sister or her age, Lady Trevelyan wasn't sure. It could just as easily be that the girl represented a second chance to him, or some combination of all three things. He gave her his most courtly bow before leaving, and she silently wished him well. The Anchor flared for a moment once he was gone, and she squeezed her left hand shut to hide its light.

*

Blackwall needed to find a free-standing tub that he could actually carry and that was still large enough for an adult to use. In theory, it shouldn't have been that hard to find one in a village this size, but it took two hours of searching from house to house before he came across one that fit his criteria. The craftsmanship seemed a bit questionable when he inspected it, and he wondered how much the original owner had paid for it—not very much, he hoped. _Well, even if it ends up leaking like a sieve, I don't have much choice at this point._ It was already later than he liked, and he could see the storm front moving in as the sky grew darker. He piled in some blankets and soap, along with the other odds and ends that he'd gathered, and started on his way back.

*

Cole was hovering next to the girl, his eyes darting over her motionless form. The Inquisitor paced nearby, rubbing at her left hand distractedly. It didn't hurt, but it was the first time in a long while that it had acted up like this. "Are you sensing anything from her now?" she finally asked the young man.

"Shadows circling around like the ones cast by the moon on her ceiling at night. But everything is all wrong in the darkness, and she can't wake up. Her name is...Rebecca." Cole looked at the Inquisitor, disappointment registering on his face. "I can't see more than that—I'm sorry."

"You saved her life and gave her a name; you've done well—more than enough, in fact. Get some sleep, why don't you?"

"I don't sleep," he said. "Not if I can help it."

"Well, you _didn't_ sleep before you changed. Don't you have to now?" The Inquisitor was genuinely interested.

"When I try to...sometimes the dreams are Cole's—the _real_ Cole's—and they're bad, scary." He shuddered at the memories. "I don't like them."

"Then I'll sit with you later in case you have any nightmares," she said, squeezing his arm.

"Thank you," he said, sounding greatly relieved.

Solas was next to the fire, stirring a pot of bubbling broth. "Cole, would you get some water? We must try to get the child to drink something at least."

Cole nodded and picked up an empty cup before making his way out.

"You're good with him," Solas said, spooning out some of the broth into a bowl. "I was worried that becoming more human would change him in the wrong ways, but I suppose that it has not been such a bad thing."

The Inquisitor settled herself near Rebecca on the bales and propped the girl up, motioning for Solas to give her the bowl. "He still retains his compassion. And isn't that was so special about him in the first place?"

"Perhaps you are right," Solas said.

The Inquisitor blew on the broth and raised a spoonful to the Rebecca's lips. Though she was unconscious, her low-level autonomic responses still functioned. The bowl was empty before too long, but when the Inquisitor put it down, Solas grabbed her hand and looked at the Anchor with fascination.

"When did it start doing this?" He watched it flicker with its mysterious energies.  
"Around the time Blackwall left," the Inquisitor said.

"Curious. Are you feeling more stressed than normal?" he asked.

She nodded and said, "Somewhat, but it didn't behave like this even when Corypheus had me by the throat in Haven."

"Based on what Cole was saying earlier, it could be that the girl is trapped in the Fade because of her injuries. She may still dimly sense the world around her, however." He studied the girl for a moment and added, "I wonder if this isn't the result of some sort of unconscious cry for help."

"Assuming that her presence is somehow causing some sort of...sympathetic reaction, what am I supposed to do about it? It's not as if I can just open up a rift, physically jump in, and then find her with a snap of my fingers, even if your supposition is correct," the Inquisitor said.

Solas stirred the pot and then looked at the Inquisitor. "You will recall me saying that it might be possible for you to physically enter one of my Fade dreams—I would not discount it as a last resort, but I am loath to put you at unnecessary risk. We should give it a few days to see if she comes out of this naturally before deciding on a course of action."

"Very well, we'll wait—doesn't look like there's much else that we can do anyway." Through one of the open windows, she could see the first flakes of snow falling.

*

Blackwall cursed under his breath as the chill in the air grew, thinking about how nice it would be to be near a fire and out of the cold. He spotted Cole filling a cup with water from the well's bucket as he got closer to the barn. The tub felt increasingly heavy with each step, so he hefted it again and told himself that he only had a few yards to go. After making sure he wasn't about to drop the damned thing on his feet, he followed Cole inside—each of them bearing their own precious cargo.

*

The sound of a loud thump announced Blackwall's entrance as he finally set the tub down, stretching before he picked it up again and moved it to its final resting spot in an empty stall. Cole was sitting near the girl, and the Inquisitor was trying to get her to drink some water. The Inquisitor nodded at Blackwall and said, "Welcome back, Thom. Did you bring me any fine perfumes?"

"I'm afraid not, my lady, though you should be able to bathe now if it pleases you. And if you want to join me when it's my turn..."

"Don't you dare say anything more!" Lady Trevelyan said, her voice rising in warning.  
"You're all puffed up like an angry cat," he said teasingly.

"And I can scratch like one, too," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Oh, I'll look forward to it," he said, grinning at her before sauntering off to the stall. _Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be this new Thom Rainier._ He gave it some thought as he organized the supplies that he'd collected and started to consider the possibility that he now had more reasons to live in the present than he did to keep shitting on himself over the past. Setting further introspection aside for later, Blackwall checked to make sure that the nails he'd scrounged up were still in the toolbox he'd found and hadn't ended up bouncing around in the tub.

Satisfied that things were in order, he called out, "Cole, a little help here? I need you to hold this up." He showed a blanket to the boy who promptly jumped to his feet.  
"Like this?" Cole had placed the blanket perfectly.

Blackwall nodded and hammered in two nails, the blanket now serving as an improvised curtain across the entrance to the stall. He left the soap nearby on some towels and carried the extra blankets and the toolkit with him back to the fire.

"There you go, my lady. Your modesty will be preserved." He bowed and said, "I'll get the water for you, but I'm afraid that you'll have the heat it up yourself."  
"Duly noted," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

*

"So, she has a name, does she?" Blackwall asked while carrying Rebecca to the filled tub.

"I'll give you three guesses as to how we found out," Lady Trevelyan said, taking the girl from his arms after she'd finished heating the water up with some sort of modified fire spell.

He laughed as he exited the stall and said, "I'll get you two some clothes to change into—be right back."

Going through his own gear and Lady Trevelyan's, he managed to find a fresh set of robes and underthings for her and then picked out one of his own tunics for the girl. It might be overly large, but at least it wasn't dirty. When he got back, she already had the girl in the tub.

She took the clothes from him and said, "You're always prepared, aren't you?"

"Well, preparation and planning _are_ two of the keys to winning any battle," he said. He was about to leave when he remembered the doll he had tucked in his belt and pulled it free. "Give her this when you're done. Might not be hers, but it seems like she could do with a friend."

*

Blackwall's turn came last, and by then the ground already had an inch of snow covering it. The rough-hewn windows were five feet above ground level, but he was starting to worry over how much snow might fall. That story about him digging himself out after his tent had been buried was no joke, and he wasn't keen on repeating the experience. He slid the barn door closed and barred it from the inside after he was done bathing, and then he carefully dismantled the sides of an empty stall, neatly stacking the wooden boards in case he had to seal off the lower windows later.

Solas had volunteered to take the first shift and look after the girl, so the warrior climbed up to the loft and sat on his bedroll, watching Lady Trevelyan wait by Cole's side until he fell asleep. She stayed close to the boy's side for another fifteen minutess until she was sure that he was resting peacefully, and then she pushed her own bedroll next to Blackwall's.

"Having trouble sleeping, is he?" Blackwall asked, eyeing Cole with curiosity. He hadn't been aware that the lad actually slept, although he supposed that this was probably one of many new life experiences for the boy. Knowing how bad nightmares could be, Blackwall didn't envy him that.

"Yes, but he seems alright for now," she said.

"Good. Anything I can do for _you,_ my lady? You seem to have this habit of putting everyone else's well-being ahead of your own," he said.

She leaned back against him and draped his arms over her shoulders, smelling the faint, clean scent of soap. "I want you to finish telling me exactly how you planned on seducing me."

"I _may_ have phrased it a bit differently." Blackwall pressed his face against her hair, and she could feel him smiling through it. After removing his arms from her shoulders, he wrapped his hands around her waist and started kissing the back of her neck.

"You are a sinful and wicked man," she said as his hands slid upward to cup her breasts. She gasped as she felt his thumbs moving in slow circles through the thin fabric of her robes, her nipples stiffening at his touch.

"These days, that strictly applies to pleasing you in bed. And only when you seem in need of a distraction. So tell me, are you in need a distraction after today?" he asked quietly. "If you'd rather just sleep, I can stop now."

"Damn you _and_ your clever fingers," she said, arching against him while he continued to fondle her. "Just move the bedrolls behind those bales." She jabbed her thumb at the crude wall formed by a stack of bales, opposite Cole.

"As you wish, my lady," he said. He kissed her ear and gave her breasts a light squeeze before releasing her from his embrace.

She almost cursed when he stopped touching her and cast an anxious glance back at Cole. Blackwall tracked her gaze and said, "He'll not wake—not if you can keep reasonably quiet that is."

"Are you implying that I'm some wanton harlot incapable of controlling herself?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him before following him and stripping off her robes. Leaning back against the bales that now screened them both from sight, she crossed her arms almost primly.

After he finished moving their bedrolls, he grinned when he saw her. "So quick to take your clothes off for me?" he asked, walking over to her after removing his own clothes. Lowering her arms, he pushed the bandeau covering her breasts down and took her left nipple between his lips, sucking lightly on it and circling the tip with his tongue until he heard her start moaning.

Lady Trevelyan made a disappointed noise when he stopped to brush his lips against hers, and she began fondling her own tits. Giving him a look that was both defiant and lustful after catching him staring at her hungrily, she said, "You'd best hurry before I decide to make myself come on my own."

He felt himself stiffen and wanted to pull her down to the floor right then and there, but he hadn't forgotten his earlier promise to her. In a low voice he said, "You are a wanton fucking harlot, playing with yourself like that in front of me. Just look at what you've gone and done." He moved her right hand down to his cock, which she could already feel throbbing insistently against her stomach.

She stroked him slowly, enjoying the feel of his skin as her hand traveled up and down its length. His eyes closed in concentration—or maybe it was an attempt at self-control. She smirked as he let out a growl and tried to muffle it against her neck. "Are you sure that _you_ won't be the one begging before the night is out?" she asked, speeding up her strokes until he groaned and a droplet of his seed beaded on the tip of his cock. Kneeling before him, she took him in her mouth and sucked on him. There was a faint hint of bitterness and alkalinity on her tongue that reminded her of the sea, and she licked delicately at his shaft after releasing him from her mouth.

"The night isn't over yet. Now stop playing with my cock and open your legs for me," he said, his voice ragged and uneven. Having her tongue running over his sensitive flesh like that, her mouth wrapped around him—it made the aching in his groin almost unbearable. Too much more of that, and he really would end up being the one doing the begging.

Lady Trevelyan stood and pushed her own smallclothes down, stepping out of them as they fell around her ankles. Then she spread her legs after bracing herself against the bales. The straw scratched at her skin, but she barely even noticed it compared to the growing heat in her belly. After clasping her arms around his neck, she drew him closer until she could suck on his earlobe. "You should just admit that want to bend me over like an Orlesian whore and slam your cock inside of me until I scream your name," she whispered.

He pinned her body with his and immediately kissed her hard on the mouth, tangling his tongue with hers to keep her from saying anything else that might make him lose control. Sliding his callused fingers slowly along her inner folds, he briefly teased her clit and circled it, sending a flare of pleasure through her that blazed even hotter and sweeter when he finally slipped his two of his fingers deep into her cunt. As she felt him moving inside of her, she moaned softly.

"So fucking wet," Blackwall said. His fingers were soaked and dripping when he pulled them out. He proceeded to wrap his hand around his cock and gave her a satisfied look as he slicked himself down with her juices. "Why is that, I wonder? Maybe you're eager for a real man," he mused. "I'll wager that none of the young lordlings or mages or templars that you've been with _ever_ made you come half as hard as I do."

She watched with fascination as he roughly stroked himself, feeling a stab of desire shoot between her legs—wanting him inside of her, but too proud to admit that he had been right all along and that she was already close to begging him for his cock. "Why use your hand like that when you have a warm, wet cunt waiting to be filled?" she asked in a husky voice, trying to goad him into fucking her. She pulled him to her again and kissed him with enough force that his teeth clicked together.

He noticed that her nipples had hardened to sharp points and that her lips were half parted as he continued to minister to himself. Blackwall ignored her question, well aware now of exactly how much watching him had aroused her. Instead, he kept stroking himself as he suckled on her left tit, which elicited another gasp from his lover. "And what exactly would my lady have me do then? You are my commander, after all," he said, kissing both of her breasts before slowly drawing his cock along her nether lips.

"You know what I want. You're just choosing to be willful and disobedient about it," Lady Trevelyan said, gasping as he teased her further by just barely dipping the head of his cock into her cunt. Showing her displeasure at being denied more than that, she raked her nails down his back hard enough to make him hiss in pain. It left him wondering if she'd drawn blood, but he felt himself twitch in response as she added, "Your fingers and your tongue—I want them inside of me."

"Anything you ask of me is yours, love," he said, instantly dropping to one knee before her. Using both hands to part her folds, he began licking and sucking at her clit, teasing the swollen bud of flesh until she had to bite her lip to stifle a moan. His tongue slipped inside of her, and she almost cried out, barely able to stop herself from shouting his name.

She thought she was about to orgasm, when he suddenly switched to using his fingers on her again. He kept tormenting her, bringing her close to edge and stopping just short, until it finally started to drive her crazy. "Maker, you win—just fuck me already, you bastard," she said, biting his shoulder hard.

"Ah, but I need to hear the magic word before I do," he said, first sliding one finger, then two into her.

She squirmed around his hand and said, "Fine— _please_. Is that what you wanted to hear?"  
"I warned you that I'd have you begging me to fuck you before the night was out, my sweet Carys," he said, amused. He stood and was about to pick her up and carry her to the bedrolls when she stopped him. "No, standing up—right here," she said, her fingers now tangled in his hair while she kissed his neck.

Blackwall pushed her back against the bales, and she hooked a leg around his thigh. She guided him to her entrance, and with one sharp thrust, he buried himself in her cunt. She threw her head back and moaned as he slowly began to move inside of her. Grunting with exertion, he held her in place with one hand at her waist and kept his other hand down between them, massaging her clit as he continued to fuck her.

She bit the inside of her cheek as the pleasure began to build in waves, his strokes sure and steady. He groaned when he heard the wet, sucking noises her cunt made as his cock plunged into her over and over again. And when she came at last, her muscles squeezed around him so hard that his seed spurted out in a violent jet as he orgasmed. He whispered her name as she collapsed against him.

"Mmm," she said, licking at a bead of sweat running down his neck.

"Up for another round?" he asked with a grin. She threw a playful punch at him, and he caught her fist. Opening it up gently, he kissed the palm of her hand.

"I should have you wash your mouth out with soap. What would people think if they heard you saying such dirty things to your Herald?" she asked.

"Bull would probably congratulate me on a job well done," he said with a laugh. "Besides, _you_ certainly seemed to enjoy it."

"A bit too much," Lady Trevelyan said worriedly, finally working up the nerve to peek around the corner. She was relieved to find that Cole was sound asleep.

"He's sleeping like a rock—wouldn't worry about it, love." Seeing that her legs were shaky from her orgasm, Blackwall grinned with satisfaction. He scooped her up in his arms if she weighed no more than a single feather and carried her to her bedroll.

"Maybe I should take another bath first," she said.

"No chance of that chance of that now, not with this weather." Still naked, he looked out through the window and could see that a blanket of snow was forming, its surface faintly reflecting what little ambient light there was. No one was going to be going out for the rest of the evening. Turning away from the window, he collected their scattered clothing and neatly folded everything up except for his tunic, which he balled up and tossed to her. "Here, you can use this to clean up with," he said.

She wiped herself down with it and tossed it back to him before getting into her bedroll. "Well, your plan to take my mind off of things certainly worked," she said.

"I'm glad." He smiled at her in the dim light cast by the lantern and cleaned up as best he could. "But I'll need a few hours of rest—promised Solas I'd be the next one to sit with Rebecca and keep watch."

She beckoned to Blackwall, who soon joined her beneath the furs. Taking his arm in her hand, she ran a finger along his newest scar, still pink and freshly healed, and kissed it. He put his arm around her as she rested her head on his broad chest and closed his eyes.

*

Three days later the snow had finally stopped, but Rebecca showed no signs of waking from her slumber. And with the snow several feet deep, there was no sense in trying to leave until it melted down.

"At least there's plenty of hay and water for the horses," Blackwall said.

"Pity that it all comes out of their rears as piss and shit," the Inquisitor said, wrinkling her nose as a particularly pungent cloud of ammonia wafted from the stalls.

"Hard to muck out the stalls when you can't open the door," he said. "Besides, I doubt the horses are enjoying standing in filth any more than we are at being forced to live near it."

"You could shovel all of it out through one of the windows. It can't be worse than leaving it in here," she replied a bit testily.

Solas was attempting to teach Cole some fundamentals of cooking, nodding as the young man added some turnip chunks to the pot. Cole made a face, apparently still rather reluctant about eating, but he remained admirably focused on his task. Turning his attention to the Inquisitor and Blackwall, Solas said, "Although I hate to interrupt this debate on the subject of animal waste and its disposal, it is time that we discuss what you wish to do about Rebecca, Inquisitor."

"Cole?" the Inquisitor asked.

"The shadows grow longer around her. It's much harder to see, to hear," Cole said. He tilted his to one side. "She thinks she sees her mother, but it's not—it's something using her shape, a terrible truth hidden behind a familiar skin."

The Inquisitor unconsciously rubbed at the Anchor and looked down with a start once she realized what she was doing. There was a brief crackle of energy from it, perhaps a sign of anxiety or warning. She sighed and said, "Then I suppose you'll need to make preparations for two, Solas."

"I care about what happens to the girl," Blackwall said, "but I don't want you doing this, my lady. Let the elf handle it himself. Isn't he the expert on spirits and whatever is going on in her head?"

She could see the frustration and concern written on his face. "I understand that you're worried, but there are only two of us capable of doing this. Thom, I'm not going to be in the Fade physically," she said, trying to reassure him.

"I'm no fool, so don't treat me like one," he said. "I've been around you mages long enough now to recognize the danger in this."

"Then what would you propose? That we sit around and wait some more? That's no longer an option, and you know it," she said. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to get into an argument with him.

"You can't be sure of that," he said stubbornly.

"Come with me for a moment," Solas said, stopping his preparations to grab Blackwall's arm. The elf was surprisingly strong for someone who seemed so slight, and he swore as Solas forced him to walk to the far corner of the barn. "This is not what she needs—nor you, for that matter," the mage said.

"And what would _you_ know about what either of us needs?" Blackwall asked, yanking his arm free and wheeling around to face the elf. He was much larger than Solas, but his physical presence didn't seem to intimidate the mage at all.

Solas was blunt and to the point. "You must allow us to do this if you want the girl to live. Your sword will be of no use in the Fade, and having you add to the Inquisitor's anxiety will not help her maintain her focus when we seek out Rebecca."

Blackwall stared at the elf in silence for a minute and then quietly said, "I couldn't bear to lose her—not after everything we've been through."

"When your life is bound to another's, it can be difficult to separate your own interests from theirs—and from those of the rest of the world," Solas said, seemingly lost in thought as he fingered the strange amulet around his neck, a fragment of bone so old and dark that it might as well have been stone. "I understand what that is like, but I also think you will blame yourself if we do nothing."

Blackwall had to concede that he didn't want another child's death on his conscience, and he also sensed that Solas was being forthright with him, inasmuch as the elf was capable of it. _It takes one liar to know another, doesn't it?_ There was something about Solas that had always struck him as being slightly off, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it; despite that, no one could question the fact that the mage had acted beyond reproach to date. He mulled over the elf's words, trying to decide exactly how much he trusted Solas with Lady Trevelyan's life. After weighing it all out, Blackwall finally said, "Then you'll have to keep my _vhenan_ safe while you're in there. That's the word you use, isn't it?"

The mage gave him a wry smile. "You may be a better language student than our dear Inquisitor. I will try—that is all I can promise. But know that she is strong to have survived both the Conclave and Adamant."

When the two men returned, the Inquisitor saw that Blackwall wasn't particularly happy, but was no longer trying to argue against her decision. With a curt nod to the Inquisitor, he wordlessly sat next to Rebecca.

The Inquisitor nudged Blackwall to make room for her and sat by his side while Solas busied himself concocting the potion they needed. "Watch over us out here. We shouldn't be too long," she said.

Blackwall snorted at that and said, "I still can't believe you were worried about me being out in the dark and the snow to get that damned tub. It seems like nothing compared to what you're about to do."

"That's my life now—doing the impossible and the exceedingly dangerous is all in a day's work," she said, imitating Dorian. "As the Herald of Andraste, I'm expected to pull a miracle out of my ass at least once a week. I think it's a rule."

It was enough to elicit a laugh from him. "I'll just have to get used to not always being there to protect you," Blackwall said. He flexed his hand and tightened his forearm experimentally. "I suppose I can start practicing again at least—something to keep me occupied while you're away."

Careful to make sure the others couldn't hear her, she said, "I'd rather have you between my legs again just like last night...but duty calls as always."

"Maker, woman—that's enough out of you! This is serious," he said, glowering but secretly pleased by her words.

The Inquisitor could tell that he was only feigning indignation and kissed him on his nose before getting up. The elf was holding up the potion to check its clarity and asked her, "Are you ready?"

"Yes, let's get this over with," she said.

He poured out half of the amber liquid into two cups but motioned for her to wait as he placed two blankets on the ground. "Not particularly comfortable, but it is better than the bare floor," Solas said. "I would have suggested the loft, but it will be easier for the two of them to keep an eye on all of us this way."

She immediately knocked back her half of the potion so that she didn't have any time to think about what she was doing, and a warm lassitude soon spread through her limbs. Her eyelids grew heavier, and the last thing she heard was Solas saying that they would find the girl.

*

The Inquisitor opened her eyes and felt a wave of vertigo as islands of solid earth sailed overhead in defiance of the laws of gravity. Rough stone arches and pillars rose impossibly high into the eldritch sky, and it gave her the strange sense of being in a cathedral, despite the wrongness of the place. Off in the distance, the ebon spires of the Black City could be seen. The Seat of the Maker lay within, long hidden from the eyes of mortal men until the Tevinter magisters had despoiled the city's halls over three thousand years ago. _I could breach it now...I bear the key._ She felt an itch of curiosity, the same temptation to know the unknowable that the magisters themselves had no doubt felt, but Corypheus was an object lesson on the dangers of ambition and pride left unchecked. _Countless lives sacrificed during the Blights, ancient glories forever lost, and empires left to dust and ruin...that is not my path._ She kept the price the world had paid for the sins of those seven men and women fixed firmly in her mind, even as a part of herself continued to whisper that she could do what they had done with the Anchor's power.  
Solas was by her side, staring at the Black City as well. His lip curled into a snarl for a split second, a micro-expression of almost feral anger and disgust flashing so quickly that she almost thought she'd imagined it. The Inquisitor cleared her throat, and her companion's countenance was suddenly as calm and still as the surface of a pond. He had taken care of her after the events of the Conclave, and she owed him much for his service back then and in the days since, yet she felt a twinge of uneasiness for a moment. It was the same feeling she'd had after setting him loose on the mages responsible for his friend's death in the Exalted Plains.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With time running out, the Inquisitor and Solas have headed n the Fade to rescue the survivor, Rebecca, and wake her. However, their actions are about to result in some unwanted attention from the individual responsible for the destruction of the village they've temporarily taken shelter in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as the Fade section involving Rebecca goes, bold italics indicate the Inquisitor's lines. Bold text indicates the Sloth demon's lines. Plain italics indicate Rebecca's own thoughts/memories. Otherwise, all italics are either emphasis or internal thoughts as per usual.

Solas heard the Inquisitor clear her throat and tried to compose himself despite the inner turmoil he was feeling as he looked upon the Black City. He gave her a sidelong glance and knew that she had caught sight of him when his guard was down.

"You seemed troubled just now. Is anything the matter?" she asked.

"No," he said a little too sharply before reining himself in. "I am...on edge over the damage Corypheus has caused. Even with the Breach and the majority of the rifts closed, many scars have been left behind. I am still worried about some of the spirits whom I call friends."

"It will all be set right in time," she said, trying to sound more confident about it than she actually was. Though they had been a thorn in the ancient magister's side, the Inquisitor was hardly convinced that her victory in this war was foreordained.

"And when will that be? The harm to some of them may be irreparable," Solas said, snapping back at her. He immediately regretted letting his emotions get the better of him again. _An unacceptable loss of control twice in close succession._ Of all the places for it to happen, this was one of the worst. Uncontrolled emotions and impulses could affect the environment or attract unwanted attention from the denizens of the Fade, and their situation was dangerous enough as it is. Given what Cole had said, Solas was almost certain that they would end up in the realm of another corrupted spirit like that of the Nightmare who had served Corypheus.

"Do you think I wanted this? I didn't, and I still don't. But the Anchor," she said, holding her left hand up, "is a part of me now. You have no idea what the pressure I've been under has been like." She winced as the words came out of her mouth—what she'd just said sounded more than a little like whining, and she detested whining. _Well, maybe you're entitled to it after the shit you've gone through. Most people would've snapped like a twig by now._ Though that was probably true, she reminded herself that she could never show this kind of weakness in front of her army; her companions could be allowed to see behind the mask, but never the soldiers who formed the bulk of her army. Her army. Those two words still didn't seem real sometimes, but at the end of the day, she was their leader. And a leader didn't complain, she just put her head down and got the job done. It was something that she would have to keep in mind when she had to address her forces from now on.

Solas read the expressions that flitted across her face, which was so open at the moment that he could instantly tell what she was thinking. He held back all the things he could have said because he did know what it was like—knew the strain and the stress of having to make hard decisions and the weight of expectations far too well as a matter of fact. Instead, he chose his next words carefully and said, "You are right. I apologize if I have upset you, especially after warning Blackwall against doing the same thing."

The Inquisitor stared at Solas, letting an uncomfortable silence between them grow until she finally relented and said, "Your ears are starting to twitch again, you know. Are you sure that you aren't at least partially related to an ass? At any rate, we seem to be stuck in the middle of nowhere—I'm open to suggestions."

Solas laughed now that the tension had been broken. "You can be anywhere you wish in an instant, so long as you have the ability to visualize a place and keep it fixed within your mind's eye. It normally requires a great deal of practice and familiarity with a specific place or event—whether that knowledge is obtained through firsthand experience or extensive research—to create something on this scale," he said, gesturing at their surroundings.

The elf closed his eyes, the very picture of serenity and calmness now...and then the world began to melt. Colors and shapes lost their cohesion, everything flowing together and swirling in a mad frenzy. The Inquisitor was slightly unnerved as reality—such as it was in a realm built on dreams—appeared to completely break down, but the seeming chaos was only momentary.

As soon as something with a recognizable form finally came into focus, she let out a breath that she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. A moonlit forest now surrounded them, filled with strange trees. They were covered in a smooth, silvery bark, their green, heart-shaped leaves reflecting the light back up at the starry night sky and causing the whole forest to glow in the darkness. In a glade off to one side, she saw a stone statue of a wolf hidden away, lit candles around its base. Flowering vines had crept up its sides and across its back, forming a verdant cloak dotted with pale blue flowers that gave off a delicate perfume.

"The Dread Wolf, alone beneath the crescent moon," the Inquisitor murmured.

"What did you just say?" Solas asked, eyeing her with something close to alarm as her words drifted to his ears. _She doesn't know anything...it's just harmless talk. Calm yourself._ His heart hammered in his chest for a minute, but the rapid beating slowed as she continued to speak.

The Inquisitor pointed at the statue. "Fen'Harel. We've been to enough ruins now for me to recognize him. This looks like it was a shrine of worship."

"Yes, it was near the village I once called home, but all that is left of it now is this reflection of what used to be," Solas said. He breathed deeply, still trying to center himself.

"He seems lonely somehow," she said, scrutinizing the statue. It was more lifelike than the others she'd seen, with a doleful expression and sad eyes. "I wasn't expecting that after hearing those stories about him."

"The name is often mistranslated. Brother Genitivi had the right of it: the closest approximation is noble rebellion or uprising. Unfortunately, we may never know what really happened, and every year that passes only takes us further and further away from the actual truth of the matter. But I expect that Fen'Harel must have had his reasons—surely it was not something he did lightly or on a whim," he said. The words seemed to curdle on his tongue as he was forced to keep telling her half-truths.

Solas knew that he was treading on dangerous ground, but there was always that small part of him deep inside that wanted to confess and wipe his conscience clean. Maybe that was why he had taken on the name of the one sin of which he was most guilty: Pride. He had been so certain of the righteousness of his actions back then that he had moved to free his people without understanding that they would not love him for it, having embraced their chains of servitude. Despite that, he had hoped that the freedom bestowed upon them would at least be used wisely in the future. It was not meant to be, however. During one of his past awakenings, he soon learned that they had squandered the opportunity that he had gifted them with. Even worse, they had lost much of their culture and history in the process. The realization that the Dalish were little more than a shadow of what the elven nation had once been at the height of its power had shocked him and left him depressed for a time.

 _And now, here we are._ He looked at the Inquisitor thoughtfully; she reminded him a bit of Mythal—not in appearance or raw power, but in those moments of wisdom and restraint that she had displayed. Thinking about how his old friend had been betrayed and all that had happened afterwards made him wonder if betrayal paid back in kind was an endless, inescapable cycle for both mortals and those who would call themselves gods. He had betrayed those who were supposed to have been closest to him in the past, and had he not, indirectly at least, betrayed the Inquisitor? The Focus had been his, and he had given it to Corypheus, believing that everything would go according to plan—only it hadn't, and the Inquisitor and her comrades were the ones paying the price for his error in judgment. _Everyone has their regrets in the end._

Solas seemed not to hear her at first as she asked him what they needed to do next. The Inquisitor repeated herself more forcefully but still received no response. Frustrated, she finally said, "So help me, Solas, I will slap you across the face in exactly _ten_ seconds if I have to."

He shook his head as if to rouse himself and said, "Forgive me, but reminders of my younger days have always proven somewhat distracting. And at my age, it is easy to become lost in the past. In answer your question, _you_ are the next step. You must concentrate on the girl, the village—everything that you saw when you were out exploring. If you can make it sufficiently 'real,' then anything in the Fade tied to the actual physical location should be drawn to your manifestation of it."

"Including the girl's consciousness, I suppose," the Inquisitor said.

"Yes, one would hope. However, the demon has had Rebecca under its influence for several days now and has likely extracted a great deal of information from her during that time. The illusion of her home that it has created is probably quite convincing, and it may be difficult to overcome," Solas said. "Also, I must warn you: the demon will know when you try to exert your own influence."

The Inquisitor gave a distinctly unladylike snort. "Then I hope it doesn't send one of those oversized, drooling monster after us like that Nightmare did. I'm all out of Grey Wardens to sacrifice at the moment," she said. The dark humor was her way of dealing with the lingering guilt she felt over Ser Stroud's death. She smiled ruefully, fully aware that there was nothing to be done about it now. _Sometimes you make choices and just have to live with them—even when they keep you up at night._

"I doubt we will have to worry about _that_ again, but it is highly likely that it will pull us into its realm once it notices us," Solas said.

"How do I keep ending up in these situations?" she asked before closing her eyes and trying to concentrate. In her mind, the Inquisitor built up the details line by line, like one of the charcoal sketches she'd done under the tutelage of the art instructor her mother had hired for her when she was younger. Evidently, her fondness for climbing trees was collectively frowned upon by the families of her potential marriage prospects, so her mother had insisted that she had a choice between art lessons or classes on etiquette and comportment. There had been no question that she would choose the least mind-numbingly dull option out of the two. She'd been resentful over the forced art lessons at first but eventually grew to love it after realizing that she had some small amount of talent when it came to drawing.

Once the initial work was done, she began to add the final shading and colors needed to bring the vignette she had drawn in her head to life. When she opened her eyes, they both stood at the center of the village green again, only this time around it was no longer a battlefield with the dead piled on top of each other. Ghostly people strolled past them, their images flickering and insubstantial at first. They wavered as if unable to decide on what shape to take but soon gelled into what she assumed were close likenesses of the former villagers. They chattered amongst themselves and went about their business as usual, apparently oblivious to the two mages.

Within the space of several minutes, she could feel a pressure change in her ears. There was a faint popping sound, accompanied by a voice that boomed out and said, "How droll. The little mage with her little mark thinks she can take what is mine." Each word was slow and ponderous, punctuated by periodic yawns. "I must confess that I don't enjoy being roused for very long...and my plaything _is_ finally starting to bore me. Would you care to make a wager to get her back? It would be so much better and take far less effort than mortal combat, would it not?"

"Before I agree to anything, I want to know who I'm dealing with," the Inquisitor said, wary of the unseen being that she was talking to.

"Where _are_ my manners—I am Sloth," the demon said. It appeared before them in the guise of a lion, its black mane a contrast to its amber-colored eyes and tawny fur. Its tail swished back and forth as it watched them from beneath its heavy-lidded eyes.

The Inquisitor raised an eyebrow at Solas and said, "I take it that we _are_ in this damned thing's domain."

The demon's eyes suddenly had a dangerous spark in them despite its drawn-out manner of speech. In a warning tone it said, "Be careful with your words, little mage. I will tolerate only so much incivility before I decide to expel you, or worse. Remember that you are a guest in my home."

Solas said, "Gambling with a demon does not generally turn out well. Neither does negotiating."

"This, from the man that Blackwall warned me never to play Diamondback with?" the Inquisitor retorted. "You could beat the Maker himself at the game, judging by what _he_ said. Also, need I point out that you're friends with quite a few Fade spirits?"

"I think that both you and he have greatly overestimated my skill at cards," Solas said. "And just because I am friends with certain spirits, that does not mean that I am friends with _all_ of them—certainly not this one."

The Inquisitor watched as Sloth idly swatted its tail at a circling fly and said something to Solas in Elvish. Solas bristled at the demon's words and issued what sounded to the Inquisitor like a warning.

*

The demon gave a low-pitched laugh and appraised Solas. "Are you sure that you do not wish to lay your burden down and return to your long sleep? I could help you with that—for a price. You have so many lifetimes within you that they would sustain me much longer than this little mage's single flame would."

"Make no such offers to me again, demon. I will let you play your games, but you will say _nothing_ to her of my true nature during our time here. You know what I can do," Solas said.

"Then I suppose I must deal with the little mage. How _very_ disappointing," Sloth said. "You will honor any bargain that I make with her?"

"Yes," Solas said without hesitation, "but I very much doubt that I will have to." He was lying of course, but once you got in the habit of it, the lies always came more and more easily to your lips. There was no way that he would ever allow any such bargain to go forward if the demon won, not when he needed the Inquisitor and the Anchor to undo Corypheus. The magister had once claimed that she was the mistake, but it wasn't so—Corypheus had been the mistake, and she was the means to correcting it.

Sloth gave him a wide grin that showed off rows of pointed teeth. "Know that if you are wrong, I will feast on her soul come morning."

*

Another yawn from the demon signaled the end of his conversation with Solas. The Inquisitor had to quash the sudden impulse to yawn along with it. She gave Solas a look that said there would be questions later, and he ducked his head in apology.

"Little mage, I asked if you wished to gamble, but I did not say that it would involve anything so banal as playing a simple card game," Sloth said. "Instead, we shall see if you can do exactly what you came here to do: convince the girl that all of this is an illusion and that she should return with you."

"What do you want in exchange if I lose?" the Inquisitor asked as a formality, already perfectly aware of what it wanted from her.

Sloth chuffed in amusement and said, "A life for a life, of course. You are so much more _delectable_ compared to her—so many more dreams and experiences to feast on, and your mark makes you burn so brightly! You would last me far, _far_ longer than most, but if you do not wish to accept my bargain, you may leave here unharmed. However, you should be aware that if you do not agree to my terms, I will simply continue to feed on her until there is nothing left but a mindless husk."

The Inquisitor said, "Why am I not surprised. I agree to this _bargain_ of yours, but I demand that we be given twenty-four hours for the task."

"That is fair," Sloth said, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. It seemed quite pleased with itself and sounded very sure that it was going to win. "Go now, before I have a change of heart."

Solas and the Inquisitor felt a lurching sensation and suddenly found themselves outside one of the houses. "There has to be a catch," she said.

Sloth's words drifted to them like a whisper on the wind. "I forgot to mention one rather important detail: neither the girl nor any of these simulacra will be able to see you. She will hear you dimly while she is awake, as small voices in the back of her mind, but it is only during her dreaming hours that she will hear you most clearly."

The Inquisitor's heart dropped into her stomach. All the stories she'd heard about demonic possession seemed to spring unbidden to her mind. She suddenly needed very much to be angry, angry enough to not give in to the fears that were clawing for dominance inside of her. Unsure if the demon was still listening, she addressed it anyway and said, "You aren't the only one who can shape reality with their thoughts in this place. We'll see whose will is strongest, you stinking piece of Fade shit."

Solas put his hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her and said, "Blackwall's rough edges seem to have rubbed off on you, which may not be a bad thing in this case. Hold on to that fire; it will carry you through the trials ahead of us."

*

Blackwall had rigged up a straw dummy in the corner of the barn and was swinging furiously at it while Cole hummed tunelessly in the background. _Maybe Fade spirits are tone-deaf,_ he thought as his sword hit the dummy with a satisfying _thunk._ He was considering adding pointed ears to it when Cole interrupted him.

"That's _not_ very nice. He's our friend," Cole said, crossing his arms.

"Friends can be upset with each other sometimes. Cassandra hasn't forgiven me after...you know," Blackwall said, blowing air out between his lips. He slashed at one of the dummy's arms, the motion fluid and quick despite his recent recovery. "Look, I just needed to do something besides worrying about Lady Trevelyan, and a few _slightly_ resentful thoughts helped me to not think about her. I may have accepted the necessity of what they're doing, but I'm still none to pleased that Solas put that idea about the Fade in her head."

Cole frowned and said, "The Seeker forgave Varric."

Blackwall grunted loudly and then hit the dummy harder than was strictly necessary before sheathing his sword. He wiped at his forehead with his arm and sat down across from Cole. "I _lied_ about who I really was. The Lady Seeker feels betrayed because she believed that I was a man of principle, only to find out that the man that I used to be was no better than a common thug," he said.

Cole's forehead wrinkled as he digested this information. "She knows that you're not the same Rainier anymore, but she is conflicted," he said. _"Laughs when she doesn't mean to at his jokes, forgetting her anger and her wounded pride over being deceived. She remembers their friendship for a moment, sees the possibility of it still hanging there."_

Considering Cassandra's harsh words during their last encounter—and she had been in such a fury that the Inquisitor had felt compelled to step in to defuse the situation—Blackwall was a bit taken aback. "I...didn't expect that. Be that as it may, the Lady Seeker has every right to be angry with me for life, and I'd not blame her for holding a lifelong grudge over it. As for Varric, well, he was only trying to protect a friend who has been ill-used by many. I think she understood that once her anger died down."

"The Seeker thought I was a demon before and wanted to get rid of me, but now she has started to see me as... _me._ She is not always as hard and unyielding as stone, even if that is what you believe of her," Cole said.

"You _almost_ sounded like a normal boy once or twice there. Are you sure you're the real Cole?" Blackwall asked, his lips involuntarily twitching up in a smile.

Cole seemed confused and said, "But I'm not the real Cole. He—"

"I was joking," Blackwall said, slapping Cole on the back. "Tell you what, lad, let's spar together. That'll help keep me from thinking about Lady Trevelyan and Solas. Besides, this dummy isn't putting up much of a fight."

Cole nodded and got his daggers out, hefting them in his hands to test their balance. He sneaked a quick look at the sleeping mages. _Their thoughts are even farther away now, hers shot through with a thread of fear that wasn't there earlier—contained, compartmentalized so that it won't grow into a sea that drowns her._ Glancing at Blackwall, Cole wanted to tell him, but he realized that telling him would only hurt, not help. Two impulses warred within him: the almost compulsive need to be truthful and the desire to not cause harm.

 _It used to be so much easier than this, a time when there was no conscious thought, only action._ Cole opened his mouth and then closed it, deciding in the end that he should withhold this information. Blackwall told him to stop gawping like a fish and began explaining what they would be doing, emphasizing that this was only practice and that Cole should absolutely _not_ stab him for real. The whole time, Cole could only fret about whether or not he had made the right decision. He believed that he had and resolved to tell Blackwall about it later only if there was cause; for now, there was nothing that either of them could do out here but wait.

*

Rebecca opened her eyes, cornflower blue but bloodshot as if she hadn't been getting much sleep. There was a moment of hazy confusion and a memory of violent blow that made her reach for her scalp and left her expecting to feel sharp pain as she probed at the area. A voice she'd heard before at night whispered that nothing was wrong, that she was safe at home and should forget such ridiculous notions. Another voice, a newer voice insisted that it was real and that her fingertips would be covered in fresh blood as she drew them back. She looked at them and felt a fleeting sensation of wetness, but there was no blood that she could see. Blinking in confusion, she picked up her doll.

_**But it's not your doll, just look at it. We—** _

The new voice suddenly cut out as if blocked by something, and she squeezed the doll until the stuffing threatened to burst out of it. Rebecca suddenly threw the doll across the room and screamed, "Not mine, not mine, not...MINE!"

The door to her room opened, startling the girl who was still in her nightgown. "What's wrong, little heart?" asked her mother. Marlette's soft brown eyes should have been familiar and comforting, but there was something off about them. For the past week, Rebecca had had that same feeling, but it always went away after breakfast. Her mother had made her favorite sweet rolls every day, and whatever concerns she might have seemed to instantly evaporate with the very first taste of cinnamon and brown sugar.  
Life had gone on as normal despite her lack of sleep, largely consisting of school and chores and giggling about boys with her best friend Lorene—only she was so tired every morning. The last few nights had been passing strange, voices and whispers and half-remembered dreams that frightened her when she thought about them too long.

 _Your father and mother were there by your side in the dark, eyes open and unseeing_.

Rebecca shook her head at the strange notion. Her father was in Val Royeaux, wasn't he? He had gone on one of his business trips and had promised to bring back a silk hair ribbon and candies like always.

_He won't be coming back. You know why—it's because he was there with your mother and you beneath those other bodies._

**He will be coming back, and he'll bring you the chocolates that you love—maybe even a new dress if things go well.**

She hadn't ever heard any other voices during the daytime but her own until now, at least that's what she thought. It scared her, and she wondered if she was going to end up like the village madwoman, the one who...

_...the one who murdered them all and nearly killed you._

She clutched at her head as a dull pain grew in her temples. Her own voice was saying such terrible things that couldn't possibly be true.

_**But they are true. We've been with you for over three days now. I'm sorry, Rebecca, but your mother and father are gone.** _

**These are just silly, idle thoughts. Isn't Mother here with you now? Believe your eyes, only your eyes.**

**_No, you need to remember everything. It will hurt, I know, but this place is only a slow death cloaked in illusion._ **

Marlette clucked worriedly at Rebecca and felt her forehead. "Let's get some food in you, and then it's back to bed, little heart. You have a bit of a fever, so we'll have to keep you out of school today."

They were the right words, the kind of words any mother would say to their child, but Rebecca sensed the absence of genuine feeling. _Did she ever really call you little heart? Think and remember...it was mon couer: my heart, not little heart._

**Eat your fill, and then dream. There's no need to think about the past or the present.**

Sometimes the voice was hers, but sometimes it was one of the others now. It was becoming very confusing, and Rebecca drew her knees up to rest her head on them. "Mother, I'm...I'm not feeling well. Could I just sleep? I...I don't think I can keep anything down."

Marlette looked disappointed. "You're sure? I have some bread and jam and fresh clotted cream if you think you can eat."

Rebecca shook her head.

"Fine, little heart, sleep it is then." Rebecca's mother tucked her in and added, "I'll bring you a glass of water. You have to promise to drink a bit for me."

"I will," Rebecca said quietly, just wanting her mother and all the voices to leave her alone.

*

The Inquisitor winced as a sharp needle of pain embedded itself behind her right eye. "This is not the time for a fucking migraine," she said as flickering geometric patterns seemed to form in the air—a visual hallucination that signified the imminent arrival of a particularly devastating headache.

Solas stood by her side in Rebecca's room and tried using a minor restorative spell. "Better?" he asked.

The Inquisitor sighed with relief and nodded, the symptoms ameliorated just enough for her to remain functional. In here, they were ghosts unseen by Rebecca or the simulacra, and it was only with a great expenditure of mental effort that the Inquisitor was able to get through to the girl at all. After their most recent attempt at communication, she was bone tired. "Maybe you should try taking over. I didn't realize that this would be so exhausting," the Inquisitor said, sitting down to take a breather for a minute.

"She is already showing signs of great distress, and adding my voice could cause her to retreat further into herself," Solas said. "The balance is very delicate."

Her mouth was set in a grim line when she looked up at him. "I'll need to push harder, regardless of the danger. She doesn't want to remember what happened, but she has to. I almost thought she was going to break the demon's hold on her before it showed up here."

That the demon was imitating Rebecca's mother, this Marlette woman, was no surprise. It was calling the girl _little heart,_ just like it referred to her as _little mage._ She had to admit that it was a rather masterful performance by the demon, but the fact that it was no longer using the same condescending, self-satisfied tone it had used when they were negotiating terms earlier probably helped. For now, its attention seemed to be diverted by having to maintain the fiction of being Marlette. It was time to make another attempt.

*

_**Remember the blow and the blood running down your face as you passed out. Do it now before the pretty lies kill you, Rebecca.** _

Rebecca's eyes flew open. She'd been close to dozing off, the queasy sensation in her stomach having slowly gone away after an hour of silence in her own head, but she was wide awake again. With trembling fingers, she reached for her scalp as she had earlier. This time, pain blossomed as she made contact with a still-raw wound, her fingers coming away sticky and red. _The glint of metal as David's fist came crashing down, and then...darkness until you woke up here at home._ It should have been a killing blow, but she had seen the struggle in his eyes as he put the last of his will into resisting the force that controlled him. Instead of caving her skull in, the blow was a glancing one, though it was still hard enough to leave a nasty gash and make her ears ring. _And then you pretended, played at being dead even as the bodies piled up...right up until you couldn't breathe anymore and passed out._

She'd always thought that she would one day marry the handsome guardsman when she grew up. He had been his usual kind, gentle, and courteous self until that _thing_ had returned to the village and unleashed its fury on all of them, the sins of the past coming home to roost. As if a dam inside of her had broken, she soon began to recall all that had happened to her on that day. Rebecca made a high-pitched keening sound that gradually turned into a scream, and then everything went to hell.

*

The ribbons of blood had bound them to her, and all Elena had to do to make her marionettes dance was to pull on their invisible strings. She...not her...the other...had thoroughly enjoyed the looks of horror on their faces and their recognition of exactly who and what she was as she had forced them to kill, laying waste to all they held dear. It had only taken was a single unaware guardsman for her to make her move.

She'd spent days observing the village of Boisvert that she'd once called home at the suggestion of the demon who had first come to her in her sleep. It sensed her hatred and resentment for the beatings and the starvation and the countless other small cruelties inflicted on her when she was a child—all because she could do what those narrow-minded, fearful people could not. _Well, they were paying for that now, weren't they?_ The demon had told her that there had to be an exchange made in order for her to exact revenge. It said that she only had to share her body with it and that the ones who had wronged her would pay for what they had done.

She had eagerly agreed to this. To her, it seemed like a small price to pay when she was already an outcast. They had exiled her years ago, but she had never strayed far from the village in all that time, instead choosing to stay close and make her home in the old abandoned mine to the north. A small silver plate she'd had her puppets take with them reflected the ruins of her face. The disfigurement was something the demon hadn't made her aware of, but it didn't bother her. It probably should have, but her personal vanity seemed to have vanished along with much that had made her human; it was as if everything but the desire to hurt others had burned away to ash. For a second she shivered over how much of herself had been lost. Then she twirled a finger, and the remaining survivors instantly charged at each other, dueling for her...t _he other's_...entertainment in the flickering light of makeshift torches.

There was a helpless moan from one of the men as a sword sliced his arm open, and she... _the other_...laughed in delight at his pain. A member of another pair of duelists, David, gave her a pleading look. _The other_ had numbed her to the point that she barely felt anything, but the fading embers of her humanity sparked fitfully in the darkness of her soul. The small part of her that remembered his kindness flinched at his silent entreaty. They were the same age, and he'd been one of the few who treated her like a human being when they were younger. _It hadn't been his fault, yet she had forced him to kill his own parents. She was a monster now and deserved to...to..._

Elena gestured with her hand, and David fell to the ground; he was not truly free, but he was no longer being forced to engage in combat as the others had been. If he'd had true freedom, he would have run her through with his blade and then turned it on himself, because in his mind, they were equally damned. _It would be a mercy for both of us._ His eyes were hollow as he stared at a small puddle of water and sat there, waiting hopelessly. His fist slammed into the ground hard enough for him to feel the bones of his knuckles grinding against the rock. The abomination's grip on him had loosened enough to allow him that much.

Her head jerked up, one hunched shoulder spasming as the demon asserted itself more forcefully than it ever had since they first merged. "You wanted vengeance," the demon said out loud in her voice, "and that's what I have given you—given _us_. You cannot turn away from the path that we are on. We are _one,_ and mercy is something that I will not tolerate. Make him start dancing for _us_ again, or I will erase all remaining traces of you for this useless display of compassion." The part of her was still human despaired. She had wanted revenge on those who had directly abused her, yes, but not full-scale slaughter. It had used her, and she understood that now.

The Veil itself reverberated around them, distracting the demon within her. It could see the origin point light up like a pole star, right over the village, and her eyes narrowed involuntarily. This was something to be investigated at once, and it took much higher priority than its host's act of minor defiance did. "Stop your fighting," it said in a tone that contained a hint of petulance, like that of a child pouting over being denied a sweet. Five sword arms lowered five blades in eerie synchronicity, but David was still slumped on the ground. "We march."

David groaned, unable to fight the compulsion. He struggled to his feet, his knuckles raw and bleeding as he joined the others in a single-file line. _Like soldiers off to war—what a fucking joke this is._ The thought ricocheted around in his mind as the blood magic forced him to put one foot in front of the other.

*

Blackwall's sword dropped to the ground with a clatter as Rebecca sat up and screamed. Cole managed to strike him while he was distracted and sliced through some of the padding in his armor as he inadvertently lowered his shield. "Shit, boy, I told you this was only practice!"

"Sorry," Cole said defensively, "but you _also_ told me I wasn't trying hard enough earlier!"

"Maker preserve me—I think you've finally learned to sass your elders. Fine time for that," the warrior said as he knelt by the girl. "Go check on Solas and Lady Trevelyan while I tend to her."

Cole nodded and moved to watch over the two mages who still slumbered. Rebecca looked around, confused by where she was. Her eyes widened when she saw the imposing warrior, and she opened her mouth to scream again.

Blackwall winced as she let out another wail and hastily dropped the shield he'd still been holding, making sure to show her his empty hands. "Easy now, child. You're safe here," he said in the same soothing tone he'd always used with Liddy. "We're with the Inquisition—passed through here on the way to Sahrnia. Do you remember that?" _She should. It was like a bloody parade, with everyone trying to get a look at the Herald._

Rebecca nodded jerkily. Even though she was getting a bit too old and a bit too big for it, her father had sat her up on his shoulders so that she could get a good look at the Herald and her retinue. She remembered seeing a graceful woman with long, dark hair and the large, bearded man riding beside her. _I giggled when he took her hand, and all the adults whispered as if something terribly scandalous had occurred._

"Well then, can you sit by yourself for a while, young miss?" he asked lightly.

She flinched and shook her head.

Blackwall slowly lowered himself beside the girl so as to avoid spooking her; she was already skittish enough. He started singing in a baritone that was slightly rusty from disuse. The song was a lullaby that his mother often sang for him and his sister about the first flowers of spring. By the end of it, Rebecca was silent but seemed more at ease.  
"Don't want to talk yet, eh? That's fine. I spent a lot of time by myself once—didn't feel much like talking then either. Silence can be a comfort," he said in a conspiratorial tone. "But I'm afraid that I have to talk with my friend over there for a minute, so you stay right here with your friend." He pointed at the poppet that was resting on her lap.

Rebecca looked at him with large eyes and nodded. Now that she was awake, he'd guess that she was twelve or thereabouts. _Too young for tragedy like this._ His thoughts turned to the Callier children, and he grimaced as his mind briefly conjured up their ghosts. _They were too young as well._

Cole worriedly said, "They should be closer now, but they're still so far. It doesn't want to let them go...it is _angry_."

That immediately dragged him back to the present, leaving Blackwall swearing under his breath, mindful of Rebecca. "It?"

The young man looked at him and then looked away evasively. "A demon."

*

"I don't like losing," the demon said, the words rumbling like thunder throughout the suddenly empty village. Now that Sloth no longer had to keep up the pretense, it felt as if they were players walking through an abandoned stage set.

"You will enjoy dissolution even less if you try to hold us here," Solas said, trying to use his other senses to search for the demon's location.

Sloth coalesced out of the ether, taking on the form of an arcane horror this time. Its empty eye sockets were hidden behind a dark veil, and it spoke with a mixture of hatred and naked hunger as its veneer of civility cracked. It drifted close to Solas and said, "I can see into your heart with these withered eyes. I know exactly what you planned on doing if the little mage had lost her gamble."

"You've lost, and we are leaving," the Inquisitor said weakly. She was still so tired that she could barely stand. The Anchor sputtered to life and then fizzled out, leaving her cursing as she failed to draw on its power.

"I thought I warned you to behave yourself, little mage." Sloth turned his hand, palm pointed out, and sent out of a wave of force that knocked her down.

The Inquisitor fell to one knee, but the Anchor began to burn brightly and pulsed in time with her anger. "I can unmake you," she said, glaring at the demon as she rose to her feet.

Solas laid a hand on her shoulder. "Do not waste your strength on this, just return to the waking world. I will follow behind after he and I finish our earlier conversation."

"Don't make me come back here to get you," the Inquisitor said.

She hesitated because she was concerned about him, but Solas gave her what he hoped was a convincing smile. It felt plastered onto his face, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Shrugging at him as if to say _Have it your way,_ her form gradually became more and more transparent until she eventually disappeared from the Fade, her spirit rejoined to her body.

Sloth pointed a skeletal finger at Solas and said, "Now I will take from you what I have been denied, Wolf-God."

Wisps of smoke streamed from the mage's eyes as he said, "I welcome you to try, but I doubt that you will enjoy your meal."

Solas stood in a relaxed pose and offered up no resistance as Sloth closed in. The demon placed its hands on the mage's temples and began to probe. It laughed with delight as it dove into his memories—sheaves upon sheaves of them to examine and thousands of experiences to be savored.

Sloth started to feed, but as he did, the memories seemed to come forth faster and faster. It was too much to absorb at once as the years rolled over him, and he started to choke on Fen'Harel's life. In a panic, Sloth tried to pull away, but Solas caught the demon's wrists and would not release him. The demon howled in pain and fear, its ego rapidly being overwritten by the inner workings of a mind vaster than its own, one too large to be contained in a vessel so small.

Its remains quickly crumbled, turning into a small pile of ash that blew away in a gust of wind that Solas had conjured up. The thin streamers of smoke emerging from the corners of his eyes subsided as he checked the area. Solas found a faint trace of spirit energy, something that might one day grow into a new being. Satisfied that no danger remained, he readied himself to awaken in the physical world. As he himself began to go through the process of rejoining his body, he said, "What you became was not entirely your fault...may your next life be a better one. You will not understand for a very long time, but in some ways, this was a blessing for you."

*

"He's awake," Cole said excitedly, clapping his hands together as Solas opened his eyes.

"About fucking time," Blackwall said, momentarily forgetting about Rebecca's presence. He was, in a word, pissed after the Inquisitor gave him a rough outline about what had happened. The warrior shot a dark look at Solas after hearing about the encounter with Sloth.

Though groggy, Solas saw Blackwall glowering at him and wearily said, "Rather than being resentful, you should be proud of her strength and how well she did. If it will mollify your anger, I dealt with the demon before I left. It will bother no one now."

The hard lines of Blackwall's face softened fractionally. "I suppose if you taught itsome manners...I can overlook the rest. Just don't go making Lady Trevelyan jump into the Fade again anytime soon," he warned.

The Inquisitor said, "Leave it, Thom. I'm completely fine. And for Maker's sake, watch your language in front of Rebecca!"

"A thousand apologies, my lady," he said smoothly, though he didn't sound particularly contrite.

"You," Rebecca said. All eyes turned to the girl who had finally uttered her first word since waking up.

"Yes, child?" the Inquisitor asked. She was pleased to see that Rebecca appeared to be responsive and alert. She was physically well at least.

"You're the one who spoke to me...in there," Rebecca said, fiddling with the edge of the shirt they'd dressed her in.

"I am. Have they treated you well? I know he looks scary," the Inquisitor said, nodding at Blackwall, "but he's actually very nice—when he's not being a stubborn idiot."

Blackwall barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes at Lady Trevelyan's comment. As she smiled sweetly at him, he sighed in defeat. If the Inquisitor had been hoping to make the girl crack a smile of her own, it hadn't worked.

In a small voice, Rebecca said, "He sang for me, but..."

"Did he now?" The Inquisitor raised an eyebrow at Blackwall. "I'll have to have him sing for us both later."

Blackwall turned beet red and coughed loudly. "Maybe you should let her finish her thought," he suggested, desperately hoping that Lady Trevelyan would drop the subject. He would do literally anything for her—except for publicly serenading her like some moonstruck teenager. Not only would it be exceedingly ridiculous at his age, most of the songs he actually knew were of the bawdy variety.

Rebecca's eyes were now glistening, leaving him worried that a flood of tears was imminent. The girl was tougher than she appeared, though, and the tears went unshed. "They're dead, aren't they?" she asked quietly.

The Inquisitor nodded slowly. Rebecca let out a soft exhalation in response and hugged her doll, as if the Inquisitor were just confirming what she already knew in her heart.

It was Blackwall who took over when the Inquisitor seemed to be at a loss over what to say next. "It'd be a lie to tell you that you'll feel better soon, because you won't. The hurt will be there for a _very_ long time—I know what it's like. But you won't be alone, Rebecca, and we'll keep you safe from now on," he said, looking the girl in the eyes.

Rebecca grabbed his hand and squeezed it, refusing to let go. He squeezed back gently, a wordless promise exchanged between the two of them.

Solas stood apart from the others, uncomfortable when it came to dealing with situations like this. The humans, and even Cole by his very nature, were far better suited for such things in his opinion. Sipping his bitter tea, he found that it was almost twilight as he peered out one of the windows. In the distance, he saw faint pinpricks of orange light—torches perhaps—moving slowly towards the village from the north.

"Inquisitor, I believe that we have some unexpected visitors coming," Solas said calmly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though the Inquisitor and her companions have managed to rescue Rebecca, the girl whose mind was trapped in the Fade, they now have to confront an enemy in the physical realm - the abomination responsible for the destruction of the village. Blackwall also has to deal with Rebecca's questions about his past after an offhand comment leads to a discussion of unpleasant truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually finished this a month or two ago, but I've been on a major SW:TOR bender, and then I finally got around to Descent and Trespasser. Then there's my current obsession, which is MGSV. I'm starting to think I have a thing for guys with scars and facial hair. *points at Snake and Blackwall* But back to DA:I/writing - since I actually finished this BEFORE Trespasser (I swear to God that I did), that line that you'll read about Blackwall tearing off Solas's arms has some unintentional humor (in addition to the intentional humor) - ditto on something else that happens at the end of the chapter (well, the "something" that I am referring to might be viewed as a harbinger of things to come/a narrowly dodged bullet). I considered changing it up after I finished the DLC, but then I was like, eh, I'll just let it stand as is.

Blackwall told Rebecca—she'd switched to hugging him instead the doll for comfort—that he needed to get up right away, and she reluctantly removed her arms from around his neck. He rushed to the window after setting her down, almost knocking Solas's mug out of the elf's hand in his haste to get there. Keeping an eye on the bobbing torches as Solas cursed loudly in Elvish in the background, he sifted through the possibilities and eliminated them one by one. You had to be able to read a situation correctly and strategize quickly, or you ended up dead—something he'd learned as an officer and had lived by as a fugitive. If he _was_ reading this right, then the abomination was finally returning to finish what it had started.

 _Once a captain, always a captain._ The battlefield was his metier and always would be, just like using words as weapons seemed to be Vivienne's arena of expertise. _But despite your poisonous tongue, not even you could talk an abomination to death, Madame de Fer. I might like to see you try it, though._ A trace of a smile crossed his face. Despite their mutual antipathy, he did his level best to keep the peace with Vivienne for Lady Trevelyan's sake.

"They're not Inquisition if they're coming from the north. There's only one group it could be, and we'll not face an abomination in here," Blackwall said. "We need to move out as soon as we can, so pack your sh—, ah, stuff...up. Leave the lanterns where they are."

Everyone busied themselves with stowing their gear, and they were ready to go ten minutes later. "Fought many abominations, have you?" the Inquisitor asked as she led her horse out of the barn. There was only a sliver of the moon visible, and twilight had given way to a night that was almost pitch black thanks to the clouds overhead. Rebecca, silent and almost wraithlike, sat atop the Inquisitor's mare. The others in the group were on foot, walking slowly and cautiously through the slushy snow. They all kept a close eye on the movement of the torches in the distance.

Blackwall snorted. "About as many as the number of demons I'd fought before arriving in the Hinterlands, which is to say _none,_ my lady _._ But I'm pretty sure they die just the same if you stab them enough times."

Solas dryly said, "Stabbing things. Yes, that is the most _obvious_ solution to any problem."

Blackwall would have shot the elf a nasty look if there had been more light, but he had to settle for projecting a healthy amount of sarcasm into his voice instead. "If you're still pis...upset about the tea, I'm so terribly sorry _—_ not that you _actually_ spilled any of it _._ Happy now? And anyway, don't you f—, I mean, _really_ hate how that tea tastes? I probably would have been doing you a favor if I _had_ made you drop it."

The Inquisitor finally took pity on Blackwall. "I hereby give you permission to swear in front of Rebecca, but it's going to be your job to wash her mouth out with soap if she ever surprises Mother Giselle with a single one of the four-letter words that she learns from you, Thom."

"Maker, what a bloody relief," Blackwall said. "I was about ready to bite my own tongue off."

"Well, we certainly wouldn't want that. Your tongue has so very many uses," she said, completely straight-faced.

Blackwall spluttered and coughed, leaving his voice slightly strangled when he finally spoke. "I think we...we should...ah...discuss that...later... _in private_ , my lady." After regaining his composure, he added, "The abomination was probably attracted by your Fade adventure. This timing seems far from coincidental."

Solas interjected, "With the Veil already thinner than normal, a number of the things we did while in the Fade could have caused a disruption, one large enough for a spirit in relatively close proximity to take notice of us."

"I don't really care _why_ it has chosen to show itself. I'm far more concerned about the fact that I can barely see a damned thing out here," the Inquisitor said. She waved her right hand in the air and saw only a shadowy blur.

Blackwall said, "This gives us the perfect opportunity to get the jump on them, love. That thing is making a beeline straight for the barn, so we'll just double back and sneak up on its little group after dropping Rebecca off at the barracks with Cole. He can watch out for her while we deal with things."

"I sincerely hope that this plan doesn't result in the horses breaking their legs. Or us breaking ours for that matter," she said.

"Just give it a few minutes more and your eyes will adjust," he assured her.

Her eyes had been slow to adapt to the darkness, insistently producing sparks and flashes of false color. After her eyes settled down and her night vision finally kicked in, the world appeared in a grainy monochrome. Though everything was still comprised largely of shadows, she was able to see her companions and her immediate surroundings well enough to get by.

 _"A silver blade sings of sorrow, the fall of the executioner's sword welcomed, and then...the quiet, the echoing screams stilled and silent at last,"_ Cole abruptly said in his oddly singsong cadence. Then he added, "They don't want to go on, can't see how it's possible to live with themselves after what they've done. I would have given them their wish a long time ago and ended their pain, but that was before you and Varric and the others."

"And what would you do now?" the Inquisitor asked.

"Make them want to live," Cole said simply.

Blackwall bowed his head and quietly said, "It's not that easy. You can't just will a man into wanting to live—I know that better than anyone else here."

The Inquisitor said, "Well, I thought I did a fairly able job with you."

Blackwall laughed briefly at that. "You are a rare and wondrous exception, my lady, one of only a few women who could actually drag a man set on dying back from the abyss."

In the guileless way that only children can, Rebecca looked at him and asked, "Did she come to you in a dream, too?"

Blackwall's heart dropped into his stomach, and he saw Lady Trevelyan's back stiffen. A single innocent question had put them both in an awkward position, but he would never ask Lady Trevelyan to cover up his past now, not after all that he'd put her through. Much of what he'd done since his imprisonment had been about putting his own lie to rest once and for all, but he found himself opening and closing his mouth uselessly as he tried to come up with an answer.

Lady Trevelyan could tell that he was the one struggling this time and interceded on his behalf. She reached over to tweak Rebecca's nose, which elicited an involuntary giggle from the girl that quickly died out. "It wasn't anything nearly as challenging as getting _you_ out of the Fade, child," the Inquisitor said. "I just pulled a few strings to get him out of prison in Val Royeaux and had him taken back to Skyhold."

"But he's your chevalier, isn't he? Why was he in prison?" Rebecca asked, sounding a bit confused.

The Inquisitor turned towards Blackwall and gave him a subtle nod. It was the equivalent of her saying: _This part of the story is yours to tell._

Blackwall looked up at the sky, still wondering if there were a way to delicately broach the subject of being a murderer, or to put it in slightly more palatable terms: a political assassin. As the moon briefly peeked out from behind a bank of clouds, he studied it as he thought about what to say. He sighed and started to speak, ultimately deciding that the only way forward was to tell the unvarnished truth. The words came out slowly at first, then in a fitful rush as he tried to get through his story without stopping. "Have you ever heard of Captain Thom Rainier? Because _that_ is who I am, and all the tales you've been told about the Callier massacre are true. It wasn't supposed to happen that way, with the children there I mean, but...it did. The responsibility for their deaths and those of the men who followed my orders lies solely with me. I found out that one of my men of my men was about to be hanged because of me, and I went to stop it. That's why I turned myself in and was in a Val Royeaux jail cell waiting to die."

Rebecca gasped in surprise, her mouth forming a small O. She clearly _had_ heard the stories about him. "But when you came to the village...Mother and Father..." the girl trailed off. After a few minutes, she looked at him closely as if searching for something in his face.

 _Maybe she's trying to figure out if I'm secretly a demon or a monster in disguise_. The self-loathing that Blackwall had felt for so long threatened to come rushing back in full force. It left him gutted to know that this might have cost him the girl's trust, but he accepted it in the same way that he had accepted the reactions of his friends after they'd learned who he really was. Wretched timing aside, it was better for her to find out now rather than later. He thought about Lady Trevelyan and how betrayed she must have felt when she had first learned who he really was. He didn't want to do the same thing to Rebecca.

"My parents...they didn't tell me _who_ you were. I just remember Mother saying that you couldn't be all bad if the Herald had chosen you, and Father saying that she was being a silly romantic," Rebecca said, not quite looking at Blackwall.

The Inquisitor thought about it for a while and said, "The funny thing is that they were both right. After I first found out what Thom had done, I had a difficult time with it. Most people wouldn't have forgiven him, but I did—in the end at least. At any rate, I can't tell you what to think or how to feel about it. Even the Herald of Andraste has her own share of weaknesses—like loving an imperfect man." She shrugged and smiled a bit sadly.

Rebecca chewed on her lower lip and considered the doll she was holding on to once more. The idea that she was almost thirteen and should be putting away such childish things occupied a small corner of her mind, but it had been such a comfort and a lifeline after all that had happened—even if the man who had given it to her had turned out to be the bogeyman that many a parent in Orlais had scared their children with.

 _A murderer is what they say he is, and even **he** says it's true._ Yet he had kept her safe and comforted her when she needed it the most, and in his eyes she had seen a pain similar to her own when he had talked about loss. Her thoughts drifted to David, someone who was still close to her heart even after what had happened. Though he had almost killed her, he had managed to pull back at the last second. She'd seen the struggle for control in his face at the time and knew that his fight to spare her had involved a supreme act of will. That should probably count for something, shouldn't it?

As a vision of the other guardsmen—thankfully, David hadn't been involved in that—cutting her parents down resurfaced, she wondered how much blame should be assigned to him and the others. She _wanted_ to hate them; it would be the easy thing to do, yet she also couldn't dismiss the many years that she'd known them. Would she be able to forgive any of them if she saw them again? And what about Blackwall, no, _Thom_? Maker, she wasn't even sure what to call _him_ after this revelation. The procession walked in silence as the girl's questions flitted around in her head like sparrows.

*

"Maybe I should come with you," Cole said, hitching one of the horses to a post outside the barracks. "Rebecca will be fine with the horses. They like her."

The Inquisitor was slightly nonplused by that. "That's good to know, but horses aren't _quite_ the same as a mabari...or two...or three."

"You'd be surprised! They said they'd stomp on—"

The Inquisitor held her hand up to stop him because she really didn'twant to hear how that sentence would end. She had a sneaking suspicion that it might involve human heads, and it was making her nauseous after everything they had already seen in this place. "Regardless of how the horses feel about it, I want an actual _person,_ of the two-legged variety, to watch over her. Will you do this for me, please?"

"I will, but Rebecca wants..." Cole tried to focus on her deeper thoughts, but they were almost as tangled as Blackwall's sometimes were. "I don't know what she wants or how to help."

The Inquisitor could hear how disappointed he was and said, "Do you remember the woman who was tending to those soldiers back at Skyhold after we first got there? Do the same thing that you did then and talk to Rebecca like a person."

*

While Lady Trevelyan and Cole were talking, Blackwall walked over to Rebecca who was peeking out from the doorway. He ran his hand through his hair and hunched down on his knees so that he was at eye level with her. "My sister, Liddy, died when I was young. That's why I understand what it's like to lose someone you love. I thought you should know that much."

She was silent, leaving him uncertain about her response. He noticed that she hadn't discarded the poppet, so there was that much at least. Blackwall was getting up to join Lady Trevelyan when Rebecca stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"I can't give you absolution if that's what you're looking for. I don't think you'll ever get it from that family either." Her tone was guarded, and Rebecca suddenly sounded so much older than her years that Blackwall wondered if it was because of the trauma she'd been through or if she was normally like that.

Without flinching he said, "You're right on both counts, young miss. I've made my peace with the fact that I'll never have their forgiveness. I don't deserve it anyway."

"I'm not sure that I can ever forgive _them_ for what they did," she said. The doll's stuffing was threatening to burst out of a small hole in one of the seams again because Rebecca's grip on it was so tight.

"Try to remember that they're good men who were forced into doing what they did." He pointed at himself with his thumb and said, "Me, I always had plenty of choices in my life. Thing is, I kept choosing wrong until it was too damned late. I make no excuses for what I did in the past."

"What was it like being someone so different?" she asked. To Rebecca it seemed as if the man she knew and the captain from the stories she'd heard were two different people. She almost couldn't conceive that they were one and the same.

He cast his mind back to his early days in Orlais and found that that period of his life seemed almost completely alien to the man that he was now. "Oh, you mean being a brash young man with a chip on his shoulder? After I left home and won the Grand Tourney, I had a fine old time. I had more women and gold than I could handle at eighteen, and it was great fun while it lasted. Once I'd used up all my winnings, I joined the army to make a living and eventually made good coin as an officer. It's just too bad that I cared more about money back then than the things that actually matter to me now."

"And what is it that you care about now? What makes things so different?" Rebecca asked.

"Being someone that Lady Trevelyan can be proud of." Blackwall scratched at his beard absentmindedly. "If what you're _really_ asking is what made me who I was before, I guess it started back in Markham where I'd grown up poor and common. All my life I'd seen how the nobles looked down upon all of us. I was going to get my revenge by becoming rich, maybe getting myself elevated to a lord even. And while I did that, I was going to show every Orlesian noble I came across that I could beat them at their damned Game—or seduce their women in the process if I couldn't. I've always hated politics, but I did well enough at the Game—right up until the day I was finally outplayed. That's what ultimately led to the Callier family being massacred: me being an overconfident fool."

Rebecca had spent the whole time just _looking_ at him. At times it felt uncomfortable, as if she were somehow reading every single secret hidden in away on the deepest corners of his heart, and he wanted to shrink away from the examination, even though _both_ Lady Trevelyan and Cole had a habit of doing the same damned thing. He resisted the urge to close himself off and allowed her to keep looking for as long as she needed to.

"I wish your story weren't true, but it is, isn't it?" the girl finally asked.

"Yes, but you and I can talk more about it after things are settled. It's time for us to go now." Blackwall looked at Lady Trevelyan, who appeared to be more tense than usual, and gave Rebecca a hurried hug. "We'll do our best to bring that abomination down."

Solas motioned for the others to join him and pointed at the still-distant torches through the window. "I have been watching their progress, and I estimate that we have another twenty minutes before we must leave."

"No more delays. I want to move out as soon as possible," the Inquisitor said. Her mouth was set in a grim line; the tension was getting to her. She'd faced demons, dragons and an ancient, half-mad Tevinter magister, but becoming an abomination was what every Circle mage secretly feared in their heart of hearts. She tried to shake it off by reminding herself that as unpleasant as it had been, she had survived her own Harrowing. She'd also learned much from Solas about spirits and the nature of demons over the last year, but it was still hard to completely shed the old fears.

"Are you well, Carys?" Blackwall asked as he fixed his shield to his back. He didn't make a habit of using her first name, but she seemed more on edge than she usually was and he hoped that hearing it might prove soothing to her.

"I'm fine." The Inquisitor appeared to be checking and rechecking her gear almost obsessively before finally determining that everything was in place. There was a nervous energy about her that made him worry. It felt like an ill omen.

Blackwall sighed and kept his hand lightly at her waist as they walked out together, Solas following behind them with an unreadable expression. If she wanted to play it like that, it was fine by him so long as it didn't affect her ability to fight.

Cole waved at the three of them as they left and then sat by Rebecca's side. "I can show you a trick if you want. Just think hard about your favorite thing."

*

She was still uneasy, and the silence was just making it worse. After checking on their enemy's position and determining that Solas was out of earshot, she asked, "Has he seemed stranger than usual? Solas that is."

Blackwall grunted in response. "Hard for me to say. You spend more time with him than I do. Why?"

"He was...odd...when we were in the Fade."

Blackwall raised an eyebrow at her. "You realize that most mages are odd to begin with, right?"

"Well, my very first instructor in the Circle _did_ insist on letting her pet ferret run around her chambers for exercise—which was fine until it decided to go on an excursion and ended up napping in the First Enchanter's favorite robes. You could hear the screams all the way at the bottom of the tower in the morning!" Her delivery was so natural and unforced that it _almost_ sounded like a true story.

"Really?" Blackwall asked. Even though he didn't buy it for a second, he still couldn't help but picture a ferret being chased around by a very angry mage and had to suppress a laugh.

"No—totally made that up. They don't allow you to have any pets in the Circle," she said, her sense of humor intact despite her nerves.

"Very funny, my lady. Joking aside, I do think something's been off with him lately. I wasn't entirely sure about entrusting you to his care, but he kept his word to protect you. If you hadn't come back to me, I damned well would've torn both of his arms off," he said.

"Just make sure that you leave him with one arm, minimum, if anything ever happens to me. His magic might be what saves you," she said.

"Hush now," Blackwall said, raising a finger to his lips. He motioned to Solas who quickly moved up to join the two of them. The barn was in sight at last, a dark and hulking shape that loomed over the empty fields around it. A figure with abnormally hunched shoulders was at the entrance, transfixed by something the rest of them couldn't see. Nearby, five other individuals stood at attention, silhouetted by the flickering orange light of the fire that Blackwall had left burning as a decoy.

Blackwall muttered, "We're slightly outnumbered."

The Inquisitor whispered, "You have a knack for understatement, Thom, but I'm not worried about them in the least, not with you here."

Blackwall was close enough to the Inquisitor that she could see him frown, and he sounded stern when he spoke. "Though it gladdens me to have your vote of confidence, my lady, I need to be sure that you're taking this seriously. Let me tell you a story: I was once a boy from a town, a small village really, not unlike this place. One day, I picked up a sword and learned _very_ quickly how to kill with it."

"That's a lot shorter and far less entertaining than most of your stories, Thom. Is there a point to it? Because this isn't helping to ease my mind all," she said, unable to look away from the abomination.

"It wasn't meant to ease your mind, it was meant to keep you safe. My _point_ is that I don't want you to underestimate someone just because they can't call fire forth from the ether like a mage can or because they come from a pissant village in the middle of nowhere. Even the most clumsily wielded sword can strike you down if you aren't paying attention, and there are going to be five of them to deal with." He turned her face towards his and forced her to make eye contact with him.

The Inquisitor was chastened by his words and nodded, but her eyes unwillingly slid back to the abomination. It seemed to be sniffing at the air like a hound trying to scent its prey, and she couldn't look away from it. A tremor seemed to run through its body, and she watched as its shoulders twitched and shuddered.

Blackwall said, "There's one other thing before we start this fight: I have to ask if you want to try to save the men, or if we're to consider them...acceptable casualties."

"Do what you can, Thom. Just don't put yourself in danger," she said. As she switched back to watching the abomination, she was disgusted by its animalistic behavior. "What the hell is it doing?" she asked.

"Like any other predator, it hunts and seeks sustenance," Solas said, electing to finally join their conversation.

The Inquisitor gave him a jaundiced look. "Just once this month, could I _not_ be a demon's object of interest?"

Solas's mouth twitched slightly in amusement. "As soon as you stop being so...you, I imagine."

"Now _that_ is the level of eloquence I generally expect from Thom," she said pointedly.

"I _am_ right here, you know." Blackwall was about to add something else when he motioned for them to remain quiet, and that put an end to the talking. The abomination made a gesture, and the other figures began to shuffle after it as it walked across the threshold. The Inquisitor and the others continued to wait and to watch.

*

Elena sensed that the traces of magic left behind were the strongest here, that this was most definitely the epicenter of the event, but there was nothing and no one in the empty barn, just the unpleasant stench of animal waste and smoke wafting towards her. She... _the other_...screamed in anger, and a crate in the corner of the barn suddenly exploded into a shower of wooden splinters.

The Inquisitor's group had slowly crept into position, always making sure to keep out of visual range of the abomination as they edged ever closer. Only a few feet away when the abomination flew into a rage, they finally made their move. Blackwall quietly approached one of the men from behind and slammed his shield over the guardsman's head. The man's teeth clacked together loud enough for everyone to hear it, and his opponent briefly swayed back and forth until his eyes rolled up into his head as he collapsed bonelessly. A thread of blood trickled down the side of his face.

"You're the one," the abomination said matter-of-factly as it spun around to face them. It pulled out a dagger, but its hand was shaking as much as the rest of its body, as if were afflicted by some sort of palsy. The Inquisitor thought it would drop the dagger, but its hand steadied long enough for it to slice its left forearm open. "I'll have fun with you, with that mark on your hand once you're mine."

"I didn't break during my Harrowing, but you're welcome to try me," the Inquisitor said. She warily readied her staff as the abomination's blood flowed and formed thin tendrils that floated and reached out for the remaining guardsmen. The men shuddered as the blood made contact with their skin and the abomination reinforced its control over them. She made a mental note to watch out in case the creature tried to use the same tactic on her or her companions. The good news was that it was only five against three now. Two of the guardsmen went after Blackwall, while the other two peeled off and went straight for the Inquisitor. Solas cursed and raised a barrier, while she created a wall of ice to delay the ones coming after her and Solas.

Blackwall jumped back as one sword came at him from the right and parried a blow coming from the left with his shield. "Fuck," he said, feeling a surge of adrenaline. He normally didn't have a problem with two opponents, but they seemed to be fighting as an unusually well-coordinated team. _Maybe it's the damned abomination. They might be good on their own, but this seems to go beyond the normal capabilities of most people_. His sword rang out as steel met steel, blocking an overhand blow with his sword. The blades rasped as they came apart.

He slid to one side as the other man lashed out like a viper, a strike that could easily have hit a vital area. There was a faint ripping sound as the blade sliced through some of Blackwall's padding, but he didn't let himself become distracted by it. The man had overextended himself and was slow in pulling back his arm, so Blackwall quickly drove his shield into his elbow joint, causing his opponent to cry out in pain and drop his sword. As the man scrambled to retrieve his blade, his partner came at Blackwall again. It was easy enough to simply dodge the rushed blow, and that's exactly what he did.

The one still on the ground had his sword back, but he was in no position to do anything as he tried to get to his feet. Blackwall proceeded to knee him hard in the face and heard the satisfying crunch of cartilage as he broke the man's nose. Twin freshets of blood poured out of both nostrils, and the guardsman went down while clutching at his face. Blackwall wondered if inflicting enough pain broke the link or if the abomination was simply too busy to focus on these two.

The Inquisitor saw Blackwall out of the corner of her eye but was trying to maintain her wall of ice. She could feel a blast of furnace-like heat through the ice and saw its opaque surface rapidly turning clear as it began to melt under the abomination's assault.

Solas slammed his staff into the ground hard as he prepared his spell, the only outward sign of his frustration. If he had had his way, this would have been over and done with already. He had no compunction whatsoever about incinerating their enemies and would have preferred a quick, clean kill, but the Inquisitor was who she was and had given her orders. Solas often found her tenacity to be admirable, but she was also prone to taking a lot of risks. Above him a sphere of pure electricity rose, jagged bolts shooting out from its core as it hummed in the air.

The Inquisitor felt the fine hairs on her arm stand on end as the ball of lightning crackled. In response, she channeled her magic through her staff and allowed the remaining ice to melt away. The two guardsmen who had previously had their way blocked cautiously inched forward, but the abomination yanked its left fist back and stopped them in their tracks. "What a cute trick," the abomination said in a guttural voice, "but you can only buy yourself so much time. I have waited so long for someone to bring me into this world to see and touch and taste its strange permanence."

"And to murder people by the dozens _._ Why?" the Inquisitor asked. "You could have seen what this world had to offer, without all the bloodshed."

The abomination was wracked by a convulsion, and its head snapped back so hard that the Inquisitor was surprised it wasn't broken. "Because she... _I_...wanted revenge." Its voice had softened, becoming slightly more feminine as Elena struggled to the surface. "I...I didn't mean for any of this to happen, not like this—you have to believe me!" The side of her face that was still recognizable was ticcing. "It used me...wants to...kill. For the love of the Maker, end this now!"

Blackwall heard Elena's plea as his opponent slashed at him. He turned to the side, but the blade caught him on the cheek, leaving a thin red line that burned slightly. He could tell that it was a superficial wound, but it reminded him that he shouldn't be quite so cavalier. "I should give you some credit, boy, if you're still in there," he said. "Not many men do so well against me one on one."

"Shut up," the abomination snarled, talking to itself. "I warned you what would happen if you interfered." It moved jerkily, one hand reaching out towards the two men near Solas and the Inquisitor. With another gesture, the two men suddenly lurched forward, right towards the waiting static cage.

Solas raised an eyebrow, surprised that the human host was, for the moment, actively defying the demon and attempting to sabotage its plans. At this stage of possession, it was unusual to see such a thing, but the host's victory was fleeting at best. One man was caught by the tendrils of lightning that reached out for him and was stunned into unconsciousness, but the other narrowly avoided the cage's grasp and swerved around it as if pulled by an outside force, which he supposed was actually the case.

He called up a barrier at once after the previous one decayed. Though it offered protection from spells and physical injury, it had its limitations. Inflict enough damage and it would eventually pop like a bubble. So when Elena sent out a fan of flames from her fingertips at the Inquisitor who was caught completely by surprise, the barrier weakened just enough for the remaining man's sword to swing in a flashing arc that intersected with the Inquisitor's left arm.

A scream rang out, and it was _her_ voice. Blackwall froze, just like he had twice before in his life. In that moment he was a scared young boy forced to watch a dog being tortured until he numbly turned and walked away, and he was also a grown man standing in the rain outside a carriage, rooted in place even as he heard the screams begin. Then it was over, and he looked at the guardsman across from him with anger in his eyes. _This time, I will act,_ he vowed to himself, though his fear for her safety was almost paralytic. His sword hissed through the air as he swung, but at the very last second, he heard a voice utter a single word: _No._ His conscience or her voice? Whatever it was, it made Blackwall turn his wrist so that instead of cleaving the other man's skull in two, he hit him with the flat of his blade.

The guardsman stumbled backwards, dazed but still standing. Blackwall roared and reversed his blade so that he landed a second blow using his pommel, this time striking the side of the man's head. His opponent's eyes rolled up until only the whites showed, and then he finally slumped to the ground. Blackwall turned his attention to the Inquisitor who was now unsteadily swaying on her feet. There was a gaping wound on her left arm, and he could see yellow bone peeking out through the layers of muscle, though the blood that was gushing out soon obscured the sight of it.

Blackwall bulled straight towards the last opponent and slammed the point of his shield into his wrist, forcing him to drop his sword. As it clattered to the ground, he dropped his own weapon and tackled him. Then he began to pound on his face until Lady Trevelyan yelled at him to stop. He gave two vicious kicks to the man's kidneys before obeying her. She looked as white as a sheet, and he wanted to rush over to her, but the abomination sent a gout of flames in his direction. He dove to the ground to avoid it and winced as his knee hit the floor hard.

The Inquisitor felt like she was going to pass out and saw black motes dancing in front of her eyes, but she refused to allow herself to faint. With the pain washing over her in waves, she couldn't concentrate long enough to activate the Anchor. As she struggled to raise her left hand, the mark sputtered weakly on its own and then flared with a blinding light that made even the abomination flinch. A vortex of energy formed between them, a temporary hole punched through the Veil directly into the Fade that could tear apart almost any enemy within range.

It was the abomination's turn to scream as the rift reached out towards it. The Inquisitor grabbed at her left arm, futilely trying to stanch the flow of blood as she watched the roiling mass of energy eat away at the abomination. Half its face had already disappeared as the rift consumed the demon, eagerly reclaiming the Fade energies trapped within its host. Before it dissolved away completely, the human side of of Elena's ruined face smiled, its lone eye filled with gratitude. The Inquisitor shuddered and fell.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I suppose that that was approximately the longest wait in the universe for a new chapter! As for why it took what probably seems like an inordinate amount of time to some of you: A) My friends dragged me into playing FFXIV (the game sucks up so much of my time every single day...), B) I'm working on other stories, and C) I have rather a limited amount of time at night to write (and that's if I force myself to stay awake until 1 AM).
> 
> Even though I've been done with this chapter for a month or two (or maybe three), I've been fiddling around with it every so often - still not entirely satisfied with it, but eh. 
> 
> Anyhow, I'll still be working on this story, time permitting. It's just that the wait might be a while again because I still have Pokemon Moon AND FFXV (not to be confused with FFXIV), and Dishonored 2 to finish. Also, there's a pile of books that I need to get through as well - lol.

Blackwall scrambled to his feet and made it just in time to catch Lady Trevelyan. He laid her down gently. His hands were starting to shake almost as badly as the abomination's had earlier, so he took a deep breath and willed the tremors to stop. "We'll need a tourniquet," he said urgently, nodding his head in the direction of a stall stacked high with dry wood. "I left the firewood and kindling in that one—you should be able to find something you can use for it in there."

As he numbly walked to the stall, Solas couldn't stop thinking, _She must not die, not now, not now, not now._ It wasn't just that he could see his plans unraveling with every drop of the Inquisitor's blood that spilled out onto the ground; she was the closest thing he had had to a true friend in this world in a long time, long time. He valued his bond with her, even though its foundation was built on a lie. _Will it withstand what is to come when she finds out the truth? Do I want it to?_ He glanced at Blackwall as he walked back, a man who had truly been forgiven much, but his own sins...he didn't think there was any coming back from that. Even as he tried to make things right for his own people—his version of right at least—he knew that doing so would only come at a terrible price to the Inquisitor and her world. Forming any close attachments had been a weakness, a mistake...yet he wouldn't have changed a thing in the end. Perhaps it was only right that this would be another of his burdens to bear.

The Inquisitor's blood was still flowing freely, and Blackwall used both hands to apply pressure and slow the bleeding as he anxiously looked up to see what was taking Solas so damned long. Her blood was starting to soak into his into the leather of his gauntlets, making it difficult to keep a grip, but Solas finally returned and tore the Inquisitor's left sleeve off. The mage quickly got to work, wrapping the fabric around her arm above the wound and forming a loop at one end before placing the stick in it and twisting hard. Blackwall released his grip, mentally apologizing to Lady Trevelyan for the bruises she would later have. She was stable for now, but she was pale and her eyes fluttered beneath her eyelids.

"I'm sorry," Solas said, unable to look at either of them. There was a volume of meaning in those two words, more than Blackwall would ever know.

Blackwall heard the emotion in Solas's voice but mistook it for simple guilt over the Inquisitor's wound. "Not your fault—could've happened to anyone," he said brusquely. "One of us needs to watch them so that they don't do anything stupid, while the other takes her back to the barracks to sew her up. I'll go, you stay."

Solas tore off another swatch of cloth and wrapped it around the tourniquet to keep it from loosening. "Why you, not me? I'm far better suited to treat any medical emergencies."

Blackwall leaned towards the elf and said, "Because if I stay here, I might just kill the shit responsible for hurting her. She wouldn't want that, and I don't want to disappoint her." His voice held an undercurrent of violence, which he wasn't making any particular effort to hide.  
Blackwall still wanted to kick the guardsman who was still rolling around on the ground in pain. _He'll probably be pissing blood tomorrow, and it'll serve him right._ It was petty and hypocritical of him, especially after he'd told Rebecca too long ago that these men weren't at fault for their actions. He recognized that he needed some time to cool down, so he was making progress when it came to reining in his temper, but he honestly didn't give two fucks about containing his emotions at the moment. All that he could think about right now was how close he'd come to losing the woman he loved. He scooped Lady Trevelyan up in his arms and walked away with her, limping slightly because of his knee. Solas made no move to stop them.

*

Cole was sitting on an abandoned cot, humming to himself as Rebecca watched him. He'd helped her to remember some of her favorites things, conjuring up fragments of old memories and making them seem so incredibly vivid, but not in the scary way the Sloth demon had. For a moment she'd actually been able to smell the roasted lamb that her mother cooked on the hearth, even hear the fat splattering as it hit the drip pan. Such innocuous, everyday things from _Before_ —which is how she thought of her old life—had been so normal, so _boring_ that she hadn't really appreciated how much they had meant to her until they were gone. Here she was in an _After_ that she hadn't expected—this new life, the one without her family—and things would never be the same again.

Rebecca watched Cole twirl one dagger, and then a second, his fingers moving so fast that they were almost a blur. "Will you teach me how to do that? To learn how to use them?" she asked.

The daggers stopped their hypnotic spinning, and Cole looked alarmed by her question. "You shouldn't start down a path that leads to killing."

"I keep seeing monsters in the shadows, even when they're not really there," she said, her eyes haunted. "I just want to be able to defend myself, in _this_ world at least."

"When this life was still new to me, I made...mistakes...because I thought death brought peace to the suffering." He held up his daggers in front of her and added, "I use them now only because the others need me to, else I would put them down if I could."

"My mother and father are _dead_ because they thought that someone else would be there to protect them, but they were wrong." She practically defied him to tell her otherwise.

"They'll make sure you're taken care of, the Inquisitor and Blackwall," he said soothingly. "I know how you see him: eyes the color of the sky after a storm, the sword and the shield his strength. You want to be as strong as he is, but for all the happiness he has found, his blade has brought him sorrow in equal measure. You should be the child that you are instead of trying to grow up so quickly."

"It's too late for that after what I've seen. Besides, what happens on the day you leave me? Should I rely on others to protect me for the rest of my life, or should I be able to defend myself?" she retorted.Cole said, "I'm sure—"

Rebecca interrupted him. "You can't be sure about anything, because the future is uncertain," she said. Then she asked, "Do you truly know what it is to be afraid like I was? Like I still am?"

The question gave him pause. _Powerless and afraid, alone and unable to defend himself against the monster in the darkness—his father—and then dying alone and forgotten. Yes,_ he thought, _the real Cole had known fear and pain._ He relented and reluctantly said, "I remember what it was like, and I will teach you. But only if you get their permission first."

She was about to protest when she realized that he'd agreed and nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

He looked at her and tilted his head. _"Skittering along the edges of your mind, the spider spinning its secret web._ Revenge won't bring you any peace and it won't bring them back," he said. His voice was as gentle as always, but he was quite firm about about his opinion.  
Rebecca reddened slightly. It made her strangely ashamed that he had picked up on her hidden feelings. It wasn't something that she had seriously considered, yet she couldn't deny having had an idle thought or two about revenge. She was conflicted over the situation with David and still wasn't sure what she'd do if she saw him again. She tried to keep in mind what Blackwall, no, _Rainier_ had said; whatever else the man was or had once been, he had spoken truth. Her musings were interrupted as Blackwall crossed the threshold with the wounded Inquisitor in his arms.

"Cole!" Blackwall shouted.

The Inquisitor was pale and unconscious, and Rebecca gasped at the amount of blood drenching her left side. She scrambled out of the way so that Blackwall could put the Inquisitor down on one of the few bunks that had a mattress. "Will the Lady Herald be alright?" Rebecca asked.

Cole had a worried expression on his face as he pawed through Solas's bags, handing Blackwall some elf root and a kit for sewing, or suturing in this case. "Gauze, too, if you please," Blackwall said, his voice steadier than his hands. Addressing Rebecca, he added, "She'll be fine, young miss. It looks bad, and I'll not deny that it is, but I've enough training to handle it."

Blackwall shed his gauntlets and crushed the elf root, applying the oozing sap to the gauze that Cole gave him. He cleaned the gaping wound with it, glad that it was merely a sword that had done the damage and that there was nothing exotic involved like the demon's blood that had sickened him back at Suledin Keep. He took a needle and knotted some sinew to it, suturing her muscle and skin together in a few minutes. It wasn't particularly even work and would leave a nasty scar, but it was closed and clean. He applied more elf root before bandaging her arm up.

Cole helpfully brought him a skin filled with water. Blackwall poured some out into a dented mug and mixed in a bit of wine from his flagon. Propping Lady Trevelyan up, he brought the cup to her lips to see if she'd drink.

The Inquisitor stirred and pushed the mug away at first. Blackwall put it to her lips again, and she cracked open an eye, blearily looking at him before taking a sip. "So, I think I know how it feels to be run over by a herd of horses now," she joked weakly. The Inquisitor felt drained, though the mixture of water and wine had helped revive her.

"Then I guess we share something in common now, love," he said, wiping the sweat off her forehead before allowing her to drink some more.

"Scars included?" the Inquisitor asked. Her arm was largely numb when at rest thanks to the elf root, but moving it produced a faint searing sensation that she knew would have been much worse if not for the plant's anesthetic properties.

"You'll have one to be right proud of once it heals. Just be careful not to strain your arm and tear it open. I'd rather not be playing seamstress again quite so soon, my lady." He helped her sit and then handed her the mug.

The Inquisitor downed the remaining contents far too quickly and coughed as the liquid went down the wrong way. Blackwall gently pounded on her back until she recovered. Her voice was hoarse as she asked, "What about...the...men?" She stopped and looked at Rebecca, wondering what her reaction would be when she actually saw them.

"The lot of them are the worse for wear, but they're alive—the one that hurt you probably wishes he were dead right now, though." He sighed and muttered in a low voice, "I should have gone easier on him—he wasn't responsible for his own damned actions and I knew it. I was just so damned angry and after seeing you hurt like that."

The Inquisitor lightly squeezed his arm with her right hand after setting the mug down and said, "You stopped in time, though."

He took her hand and kissed it. "You're a far better woman than I deserve and far more forgiving than anyone I've known. I think the least I can do is to apologize to him later—if the sight of me doesn't scare him shitless that is. And in its way, it's helped me come to a decision. I need to make amends with my own men over how I wronged them—the ones who are still alive that is—once this is all over."

"That won't be an easy road to travel, Thom. Are you sure?" she asked.

"I am, but it'll be a while yet. We still have Corypheus to defeat, and someone clearly needs to look after you when there are swords about," Blackwall said.

"I'll make sure not to let them get _quite_ so close next time, although Vivienne has subtly been hinting that I should start training as a Knight-Enchanter. Perhaps I should consider it after this incident—I could fight by your side with a sword of my own." She smiled and feigned swinging a sword with her right arm.

Blackwall tried to keep from grimacing at Lady Trevelyan's lack of form and said, "I hope the training includes sparring with regular soldiers. You might be able to magic up a sword, but that doesn't mean you'll know how to use it without practice."

"Who better to instruct me than you? Besides, I'll need you to tend to my inevitable bruises," she said.

He gave her an exaggerated bow and in his most obsequious tone said, "Yes, my lady. Of course, my lady."

"Sass me too much and I might have to find creative ways to punish you for it—a good dunking in a hot bath for one. Dousing you in Orlesian cologne for another," she threatened. "You said you detested that stuff, but I'm sure that I can come up with a few other things...."

As Blackwall watched Lady Trevelyan counting to an alarmingly high number on her fingers, Rebecca coughed politely and then hurriedly said, "Cole agreed to teach me to protect myself if you both said it was okay."

"When did that happen?" the Inquisitor asked, surprised.

Rebecca shrugged at her.

Blackwall gave Cole a side-eyed glance, but the boy was doing his best to hide in the corner—not that it worked terribly well now that he was human, or whatever he was now. "Do you think we can't protect you?" he asked Rebecca.

The girl shook her head vigorously. "It's not that. It's just that you won't always be with me, and I want to be able to take care of myself. I mean...even you get hurt, and you're the Herald!" she exclaimed, pointing at the Inquisitor's arm.

"I can't argue with that," the Inquisitor said, wincing at the throbbing in her arm. The elf root might have dulled the worst of the pain, but not all of it. The request sounded reasonable, and if it made the girl feel safer, she didn't see any harm in it.

Blackwall rubbed at his chin. "Agreed, but you can only train when one of us is there to supervise your sessions. And now I'd best be off to collect Solas—the prisoners might react poorly to a mage right now."

The Inquisitor held her hand up to interrupt him. "They're not prisoners, and we're not going to treat them that way."

"We also can't leave them unguarded. Call them whatever you please, my lady, but it doesn't change the fact that they might do harm themselves if they're left to to their own devices." Blackwall crooked his finger at Cole, who proceeded to shuffle over to him, looking as if he were a small boy about to be punished. He sighed and said, "You're not in trouble for anything, lad. Just make sure that Lady Trevelyan doesn't pass out while I'm gone. See if she can eat some of the dried meat or fruit, and make sure to give her plain water if she's thirsty later. We don't want her ending up soused, eh?"

Cole nodded and walked over to the Inquisitor, urging her to drink as he stood by her. Satisfied that she was in good hands, Blackwall headed out again.

*

The guardsman with the broken nose was crying now, an unsightly mixture of snot and tears running down his face. Solas looked at him and felt a twinge of sympathy. Even as he tried to maintain his detachment from the people of this world, Solas could not help but be reminded of how their suffering stemmed from his vendetta against those whom he had once called brothers and sisters. Thanks to his kin the beauty of the old world, the _true_ world that had existed before the sundering, had been laid waste to; and in its place, were now two corrupted halves of a whole. _No, that's wrong,_ he thought, _because in the end, it was my wrath and my own hubris that did this."_

"Kill me," the guardsman begged, his voice shaky.

Solas was eminently unsurprised by this request and said, "You may yet be granted your wish by the Inquisitor, but I will not be your executioner today."

The man sagged to the floor dejectedly. Another man with brown eyes who had been completely lifeless up until now suddenly looked up at him and angrily said, "I killed my own _parents_ for fuck's sake. Just do it and put us all out of our misery!" The brown-eyed guardsman proceeded to scream curses at Solas, even calling him a knife-ear and worse.

Unruffled by the stream of insults and the cursing, Solas coolly said, "If you continue in your attempts to goad me, I will simply put you all to sleep until we reach Skyhold. Perhaps if your minds are quieted thusly, they will have the time they need to start healing."

The brown-eyed guardsman finally stopped raving and gave Solas a look of pure hate. He'd been replaying an endless loop of himself killing his own parents in his mind ever since they'd been freed. He couldn't stop it on his own, and now this mage refused to help him even though a fucking mage had been responsible for everything. _Only in death,_ he thought, _will I find some peace._

"Yes, but then who would carry them all the way back?" Blackwall asked. "We don't want to overtax the horses, so let's hold off on that, shall we?"

The man whose nose Blackwall had broken saw the shadow cast by the warrior as he entered the room and looked up, his blackened eyes widening in surprise upon seeing him. The guardsman suddenly seemed desperate to make himself as small as possible and hide in the corner of the room.

"True. Perhaps you will have better luck with them than I did." Solas scrutinized the group of men for warning signs. They all seemed defeated, depressed, and in varying degrees of physical pain, except for the one who had tried to push Solas into killing him. "Watch out—he may try to manipulate you into harming him," Solas said to Blackwall quietly. His eyes flicked in the brown-eyed man's direction. "I'll see to the Inquisitor in your stead and inform her that they're all alive, if not particularly well. No doubt she'll want me to help you tend to them, so I'll be back as soon as it is feasible."

Blackwall nodded. "I'll be careful with them, and thanks."

The man that Blackwall thought of as Broken Nose was staring at him warily, as if expecting further blows to suddenly rain down on him at any moment. When none seemed to be forthcoming, he relaxed slightly.

Blackwall pulled up a chair and sat down on it. "Introductions are in order, gentlemen. Let's start with you, Broken Nose."

"Etienne," the man answered reluctantly.

"Roger," said the man with streaks of dried blood running down the side of his head.

"Avery," said the one holding his wrist.

"Christoph," mumbled the fourth whose face was swollen from the beating Blackwall had given him. He grimaced as he probed his side where he'd been kicked.

"I'll not lie—I didn't have to be as vicious as I was after stopping you," Blackwall said, addressing him. "For that, I'm sorry. My name is Thom, though I expect you might want to curse me out now."

Christoph struggled to form his words and was terse as he said, "Don't...be. Wish you'd...finished...the fucking job."

Blackwall could explain to them that through no fault of their own they were fated to live with the nearly unendurable guilt and shame that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. He could even go on to tell them that despite the seeming impossibility of it, they might one day find a path to redemption as he had. But things were far too raw for any healing to begin in these the earliest of days. Only after they felt that they had punished themselves sufficiently, would it be possible to start the process. For now they would be faced with long, lonely nights that seemed without end for months, years even. He knew what it was like to close your eyes and be unable to sleep for fear of seeing the faces of the dead in your dreams.

The difference between him and them was that he had rightfully deserved to suffer the torments of a guilty conscience and they did not. They had been in thrall to an abomination and were not accountable for their actions. He, however, had suffered no bewitchment when he had willingly entered into a contract with Ser Robert. It been the culmination of all the bad decisions he'd made in life. _Refusing Ser Geoffroy's offer of mentorship after the Grand Tourney had been the start of it all,_ he thought to himself. _How different would my life have been if I'd had the wisdom to listen to that old chevalier instead of being a vainglorious young prick?_

Blackwall continued to muse on his past to keep himself occupied as he waited for the fifth man to say something, but the guardsman refused to speak. After he'd grown tired of the silence, Blackwall said, "Don't be difficult, lad. I know you lot have been through the worst kind of hell, but you're safe now."

"He's David," Roger said, carefully dabbing at the blood covering his lower face as he tried to avoid touching his nose.

 _Rebecca's David—interesting_. Hoping to get some sort of reaction, Blackwall said, "So you're the one she meant."

David's eyes flickered involuntarily, but he still refused to speak.

"Your Rebecca's alive," he added, elaborating further.

David's face suddenly crumpled in on itself. He shuddered and wept in relief; out of all the terrible things he'd been forced to do by Elena, he had succeeded in sparing the girl. Still, the memory of his fist glinting in the sun as it came down in the sun was burned into his brain like all the other horrors he'd experienced over the last few days. Thinking of it again it made him sick to his stomach.

Blackwall waited until he was over the worst of it and handed David his flagon of wine. "It's not the finest of vintages, but it'll help keep you numb tonight." He motioned for David to pass the flagon around to the others and said, "Once, and only this once—understand? From tomorrow on, you lot are going to be as sober as the fucking Divine until we get to Skyhold, because I can't have you puking your guts out every day from drink while we're on the road."

David wiped his mouth off on his sleeve after taking a long drink. He looked down at the ground. "You should let us drown ourselves in it, or just drown ourselves period."

Blackwall turned his head and stared at David. "No, you owe it to your dead to remember them, just like I do mine. I'll tell you another important thing: I spent years trying to find a way to escape my conscience at the bottom of the bottle and never did. You won't either, and it's best that you learn that lesson now."

The others took their turns, drinking themselves into as deep a stupor as they could manage, and over them fell a silence like that of the grave.


End file.
